Nigerian Government has pledged to contribute $10 million to the Safe School Initiative Fund created by the United Nation’s Special Envoy for Global Education, Gordon Brown.
President Goodluck Jonathan made the pledge on Friday during closed-door talks with the former British Prime Minister on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum on Africa in Abuja.
The ‘Safe School initiative’ is aimed at promoting safety in schools. It was launched on Thursday in collaboration with some Nigerian business leaders with an initial $10 million as part of the ‘#Bring Back Our Girls” campaign.
Speaking with newsmen after the meeting, Brown said he was talking to several global donor agencies and multinational organisations to also contribute to the Fund.
According to the former British PM, his presence at WEFA was to offer Jonathan and Nigeria support at this trying period that all eyes are on Nigeria on teh need to hasten up the rescuing of over 200 school girls abducted in Chibok, Borno state over three weeks ago.
Brown said, “I was able to say that the international business community wishes to support an initiative of the Nigerian business community that there be safe schools, to help parents and teachers and girls who are going to school know and be reassured that their schools are safe.
“A Fund of ten million has been created immediately. The President has just told me that the government will support that Fund with another $10 million. At the same time there is a request for international aid agencies that I have made to add to that Fund.
“We want to assure every girl that goes to school and every teacher that teaches that their school will be safer as a result of this action. And we want to support the Nigerian government in all their efforts.”
The initiative, he said would go further to get more boys and girls into school and that he would work with the Nigerian government to evolve proposals to be financed by the international community to ensure that this happens.
“We also talked about the future of education and what we can do to help the Nigerian government achieve its great aim of getting every girl and boy to go to school.
“And I am going to be working with them to formulate proposals for the international community to support by finance to make sure that more girls go to school.
“I am pleased to have met the President and to be reassured that he is doing everything within his government’s power to bring back the girls.
“And as a parent and as someone who thinks of the fear and the anxiety and the worry of any parent whose child has been snatched and taken away and not knowing whether they are going to return.
“It is in the world’s interest to support the Nigerian government to do everything in their power to locate these girls first of all, and to return them to their parents. Our sympathy and prayers go out to both the girls and their parents today,” he said.
