COVID-19: TGI Group employees provide 1m free meals to vulnerable - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet: 

The TGI Cares Fund, an employee-led charity initiative of Tropical General Investments (TGI) Group, has commenced the provision of one million free meals in communities struggling with the economic impact of COVID-19. 

The pandemic has left many vulnerable people in communities without a steady source of livelihood but TGI Cares Fund, focusing solely on supporting communities during and beyond the economic crisis, is giving them food items. 

Speaking while handing over food items to FoodClique Support Initiative, an organisation that identifies and reaches out to the most vulnerable in communities, Group Human Resources Director and Coordinator of TGI Cares Fund, Mr Tominiyi Oni, reiterated the commitment of TGI employees to assisting less-privileged Nigerians. 

“We are proud of our people who birthed this noble idea. These are difficult times, so I am elated that my colleagues have pooled resources together to kick start this charity drive,” he said. 

Receiving the items on behalf of FoodClique Support Initiative, Team Lead, Bolajoko Fadipe, expressed gratitude for the kind gesture. 

He further appreciated employees of TGI Group, promising proper distribution of the food items to the most vulnerable in low-income communities across the country. 

In its first phase, 280,000 (two hundred and eighty thousand) meals have been provided for children, unemployed youth and women in Lagos State. Phase two of the charity drive will extend to other communities in the northern part of the country. 

Recall that the TGI Group had previously donated the sum of N500million (five hundred million naira) to support Nigeria’s COVID-19 intervention fund organised by the Private Sector Coalition Against COVID-19 (CACOVID). 

It also donated food items to 2,000 families in Lagos, 500 families in Abuja, 500 families in Ogun and gave N20,000,000 to an Isolation and Treatment Centre in Lagos, among others. 

Tropical General Investments (TGI) Group is an international investment and holding company with diversified interests. Its corporate identity is based on respect for people, its communities and the natural environment as it continuously seeks to support its communities during and beyond challenging times.

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Online health provides easy access to health services - NaijaAgroNet - Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology

NaijaAgroNet: 

Online Health Company Limited has launched a one-stop hospital for all through a telemedicine app called “Ohealth Odoctor" that bridges the gap between health consultants and the public bringing both parties together on-air for effective health delivery, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The recent and sudden effect of the COVID 19 pandemic has again brought the world to the reality of how vulnerable human beings could be if there are no functional health facilities that are void of too many layers of protocols and bottlenecks. It is not a gainsaying that at this critical moment of human life, there is an ultimate and immediate need to bring health solutions closer to people where most needed to keep hope alive and preserve the human race as much as possible.

COVID-19: Local Content Committee is enabler for Africa’s economic recovery - NaijaAgroNet ... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology

NaijaAgroNet: 

The Local Content Committee of the African Energy Chamber ended his first meeting by placing local content development at the core of its activities, reports NaijaAgroNet.

COVID-19: Investing in water, sanitation a public health priority - NaijaAgroNet: ... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology

Commentary@NaijaAgroNet:

Investments in improved water and sanitation infrastructure is a public health priority for countries and communities.

As the prevalence of COVID-19 accelerates across Africa, over 40% of the population in Sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to clean water and are unable to heed the advice of health experts to wash their hands as a primary way to stop the spread of the virus. Preventing infection thus remains out of reach for many.

Action in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene sector, also known as WASH, is therefore critical to containing COVID-19. WASH’s core – providing access to clean water, improved sanitation systems and implementing healthy hygiene practices – lowers the infection rate and builds communities’ ability to ward off infectious disease outbreaks.

The African Development Bank’s guide on WASH interventions is currently helping our client governments in their COVID-19 preparedness and emergency response The guide supports the implementation of emergency WASH interventions at hotspots; utilities and service providers to enhance business continuity; hygiene promotion; improved viability of critical hygiene products and supply chains, as well as enhancement of sustainability of hygiene outcomes.

The Bank has been supporting and advocating WASH long before COVID-19’s arrival. Our investment of an estimated $6.4 billion in strengthening core WASH infrastructure systems over the last decade, has provided approximately 52 million additional people access to improved water, sanitation and hygiene as well as increased pandemic preparedness.

Over the next decade or so, our investments in the water sector are set to provide an estimated 154 million more people access to improved WASH.

Many of our established, on-the-ground WASH interventions have adapted to the coronavirus era, especially in resource-constrained settings.

In Zambia, school children recruited in early 2019 to be “WASH ambassadors” have since added the COVID-19-specific message of wearing masks, social distancing and implementing stay-at-home orders to their healthy hygiene and sanitation practices promotion campaign. Their campaign t-shirts, emblazoned with the slogan “Stop Spreading Germs, Wash Your Hands with Soap,” are just as applicable today as when they were designed pre-COVID, as part of a $243 million Lusaka Sanitation Program co-funded by the Bank and other development partners.

In rural northern Malawi, the Bank co-financed and supervised the Integrated Urban Water and Sanitation Project for the Mzimba Town project, which increased the community’s access to potable water from 65% to 95%, raised access to improved sanitation from 45% to 97% and created around 1,000 jobs. It comprised the construction of primary school sanitation facilities, including secured toilets to provide privacy and comfort to the pupils, especially girls.

School children are also serving as ambassadors to convey the message about preventing the COVID-19 pandemic from spreading into their homes and neighborhoods. This WASH project recently received the Prince Talal International Prize for Human Development (https://bit.ly/32pBxdy). The $200,000 in prize money will go to projects implemented by government agencies, public institutions or social businesses approved by the Mzimba Town scheme.

Investments in improved water and sanitation infrastructure is a public health priority for countries and communities as it significantly contributes to reduced mortality, ill health and impacts of water-related epidemics/pandemics which are a major economic drain.

Investing in WASH is a no-regret policy and decisions taken now to improve these public health systems are going to be worth it, regardless of the uncertainty around COVID-19.

*Contributed by Wambui Gichuri, Acting Vice President, Agriculture, Human and Social Development and Director, Water Development and Sanitation at the African Development Bank.

NLNG lifts Edo, Adamawa with medical equipment - NaijaAgroNet ... Linking agrobiz, sustainable environs, people & technology

NaijaAgroNet: 

The two states of Edo and Adamawa have been lifted by the Nigeria LNG Limited (NLNG) with a donation of medical equipment, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This, NaijaAgroNet gathered is coming as part of NLNG contribution to the N11.4 billion Oil and Gas Industry Collaborative Initiative, spearheaded by Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

US embassy partner African Women on enterpreneurship - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet: 

The Embassy of the United States of America in South Africa has partnered with the Africa Women Innovation and Entrepreneurship Forum (AWIEF) to implement the 2020-2021 Academy for Women Entrepreneurs (AWE) South Africa programme, reports NaijaAgroNet. Now in its second year, another 125 female entrepreneurs will be selected nationwide for an opportunity to receive virtual and in-person training and mentorship sessions for eight months. “AWE is a great opportunity for women entrepreneurs across South Africa to gain university-level business and management training, strengthen their networks, and grow as entrepreneurs.” said Embassy Public Affairs Officer Maureen Mimnaugh. She noted that “particularly in a post-COVID world, the tools for successful entrepreneurship will be more important than ever, and this program aims to support women in a recovering economy of innovation.” AWE is an initiative of the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs (ECA) as part of the White House-led Women’s Global Development and Prosperity (W-GDP) Initiative which aims to empower 50 million women worldwide by 2025 to fulfill their economic potential, with the goal of creating conditions for increased stability, security, and prosperity for all. Currently implemented in more than 50 countries, AWE supports the growth of women entrepreneurs by equipping them with the practical skills, resources, mentorship, and networks needed to create sustainable businesses and enterprises. AWE is centered around DreamBuilder, an online training platform for women’s entrepreneurship developed by the Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global Management in partnership with the global copper mining company Freeport-McMoRan. Irene Ochem, AWIEF founder and chief executive officer, said “We are excited that the U.S. Embassy in Pretoria has partnered with AWIEF to implement this important program tailored for women’s economic empowerment. Participating in the AWE program will not only help the selected 125 female entrepreneurs, but will also benefit their families, their communities, and the economic development of South Africa”. The 8-month-long AWE program will take place at American Spaces in five South African cities: Durban/Pietermaritzburg, Johannesburg, Pretoria, Bloemfontein, and Cape Town. South African women entrepreneurs are invited to apply until September 30, 2020.  Uj. N. Dominic/Editor

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Development experts canvass review of SDG domestication - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet: 

NaijaAgroNet:

Nigeria’s nutrition and development experts have canvassed for an urgent review of nation's domestication of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to alleviate malnutrition in the country, reports NaijaAgroNet..

Stakeholders seek improved education to tackle protein deficiency - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

Food security, nutrition education and the need to increase the nation’s budget for health and nutrition emerged as some of the issues that dominated conversations at the latest Protein Challenge webinar designed to address the problem of protein deficiency in Nigeria, reports NaijaAgroNet.

NNPC becomes EITI partner company - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet: 

The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has become an Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI) partner company, joining a group of over 65 extractives companies, state-owned enterprises (SOEs), commodity traders, financial institutions and industry partners who commit to observing the EITI’s supporting company expectations.

DRC needs strong political will for gas monitisation - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

Surrounded by major African oil & gas producers Republic of Congo and Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has so far remained relatively absent of Africa’s league of hydrocarbons producers. In 2019, only French independent Perenco produced from the DRC, at an average rate of 25,000 boepd from 11 onshore fields.

In this context, the administration of President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi has made energy security and investment its top priority, seeking to get massive hydropower projects off the ground but also to diversify the country’s energy basket and create jobs in the process.

In yet another decision supporting the development of the DRC’s hydrocarbons industry, President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi requested its Minister of Hydrocarbons, Hydraulic Resources and Power and its Minister of Finance to fast-track legal processes and permits pertaining to the valorization of the natural gas produced onshore by Perenco. The decision was taken at the latest Council of Ministers last week in Kinshasa.

The move is expected to result in the monetization of natural gas through power generation, especially to address the DRC’s energy deficit and provide stable supply of power to its booming mining industry.

“We are extremely optimistic about the future of oil & gas in the DRC given current political support for the industry. While market-driven policies are needed to ensure investments in gas monetization, an enabling environment is key to unleashing the massive potential of the DRC and the energy industry is open to supporting the DRC,” stated NJ Ayuk, Executive Chairman at the African Energy Chamber.

“The DRC also offers 100GW of hydropower potential, and its upcoming hydroelectric stations are expected to require billions of dollars. It is a chance for investor and local players to participate and support the ambitious growth plans of President Felix Tshisekedi fighting energy poverty and boosting energy for industrial development that will create jobs and transform the economy with a post covid-19 recovery strategy,” concluded Ayuk.

The African Energy Chamber is encouraged by the governments decision as we believe locally available natural gas offers the perfect opportunity to build power capacity in the short-term and ensure a stable and cheaper power to DRC’s industries and mining companies.

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