Kaduna State Governor, Senator Uba Sani, has met with the Director General of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, Dr. Waleed Al-Bahar, in Kuwait City to review progress on the State’s Reaching Out-of-School Children programme and explore new development partnerships. The governor led a Kaduna delegation to the Fund’s headquarters and thanked Kuwait for its continued support, describing the initiative as a “transformative lifeline” for children previously excluded from education.
The $62.8 million programme is funded by Kuwait Fund, Islamic Development Bank, Global Partnership for Education, Education Above All and Save the Children International. It targets more than 100,000 out-of-school children and aims to benefit over 1.2 million learners across all 23 local government areas in Kaduna State. Senator Sani highlighted milestones such as the identification and mapping of 79,275 out-of-school children across 14 LGAs, and enrollment of 13,756 learners which surpassed the Year One target of 10,000. He noted that 1,300 teachers have been trained, and more than 35,000 learning kits distributed to support pupils.
He explained that rehabilitation work is ongoing in 170 schools while 102 new school structures are under construction. According to him, Kaduna State is “fully prepared to accelerate implementation once the next phase of disbursements is released.” The governor added that “every additional week gained in implementation brings more children into safe, modern and quality learning environments,” stressing the urgency of continued support.
Beyond education, the discussion expanded into new cooperation areas including plans to upgrade and solarise between 255 and 500 Primary Healthcare Centres. Other proposals covered rural roads, electrification, water and sanitation systems as well as agricultural modernisation through mechanisation, irrigation, processing hubs, and youth and women agribusiness programmes. Dr. Waleed Al-Bahar commended Kaduna’s reform-driven governance and transparency, noting that Kaduna remains the first Nigerian state to benefit from Kuwait Fund financing. He welcomed the fresh proposals for possible funding and expressed readiness to continue collaboration.
The meeting was attended by senior officials including Thamer Alfailakawi, Director of Operations; Khaled Salah Al-Marzouq, Project Coordinator for West Africa; and Rawya Alawadhi, Project Engineer. Both sides ended the session with a renewed commitment to fast-track ongoing projects and expand cooperation across multiple sectors to “improve the lives of millions of Kaduna residents.”
