Jeff Amechi Agbodo, Onitsha

The Anambra State Government has promised to revive over 200 government and private-owned skill acquisition and entrepreneurial centers in the state which were not functional.

Commissioner for Youth Empowerment and Creative Economy, Mr. Bonaventure Enemali, disclosed this at the weekend, during an interactive session with all the Non-Governmental Organizations, Community and Faith based organisations operating in the state.

Enemali said the centers would be made functional with adequate training facilities , qualified facilitators and sustainable skill and entrepreneurial programmes.

He said the interactive session was the first was to foster mutual relationship with the organizations and announced that the plans of the state to form a formidable common front to be called Anambra State Network of NGO’s (ANSNGO), focusing on youth and women development, education, health and community development.

The youthful Commissioner tasked the NGO’s to take responsibility of monitoring and evaluating government projects in the state especially those within the purview of the ministry of Youth Empowerment and Creative Economy like the Skill Acquisition and Entrepreneurial centers.

The Anambra state Coordinator, Network on Water and Sanitation in Nigeria (NEWSAN), Professor Stanley Udedi, in a remark insisted that only affective monitoring and evaluation of projects can lead to sustainable impact on social development in the society.

Udedi who is a Professor of Applied Biochemistry, spoke on the topic ‘’ Effective Monitoring and Evaluation: A Panacea to sustainable Impact social Development’’, pointed out that there is no management without monitoring unless one anticipates a monumental waste.

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A Dean, Students Affairs Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Udedi emphasized that the essence of locating a project to a community is to have impact and once that aim is defeated , the project has no usefulness to the community where it is located.

He tasked communities to own government projects located in their communities from inception to completion and usage, even as he regretted that projects fail because of lack of effective monitoring by government.

Udedi who described the passage into law of the New Anambra state water policy where Urban Asset Holdings and Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency (RUWASSA) were charged with the responsibility of regulating the water policy as a welcome development, stressing that if it is not made fully operational, it will end up being just an ordinary paper work.

He referred to a major stakeholders meeting on how to achieve free open defecation in the state by the year 2025 which took place in Awka organized by the State government in collaboration with the European Union and UNICEF recently as one of the new things the state government was doing to encourage communication, evaluation and monitoring of activities of RUWASSA.

Also in her contribution, the Commissioner for Indigenous Art Works, Diaspora, Culture and Tourism, Dr Sally Mbanefo informed the event participants she was delighted serving her state and particularly impressed by the talented youths of the state, who need only little motivation to actualize their potentials.

She said her ministry was collaborating with Youth Empowerment and Creative Economy to empower the youths and announced that henceforth youths would be arranged to tour the marvellous Tourism sites in the state even as she pledged to donate N50, 000  every month to the ministry for a period of six months for whatever the commissioner deemed fit to utilize it.