‘We’ll Use Cooperatives To Achieve SDGs’

The Non-Governmental Association for Literacy Support Service (NOGALSS) and National Cooperative Financing Agency of Nigeria (CFAN) said they would use cooperative to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and achieve national development.
Executive Secretary, CFAN, Mr Emmanuel Atama, made this known, Monday, at a workshop for the development and adoption of a one year action plan by NOGALSS Multipurpose Cooperative Society in Abuja.
Atama said  the cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.
Noting that it was a smart way out of poverty, he said NOGALSS Cooperative, through its parent body CFAN, intended to achieve financial inclusion for its teeming members across Nigeria.
He said this would ensure that all NOGALSS members are financially included, which is the gateway to economic empowerment.
“We will make sure that we are able to drive towards food sustainability in the country having built the capacity of members to deliver on it.
“So, we want to use the cooperative instrumentality to entrench sustainable development, we want to use the cooperative also to achieve the SDGs, that is what NOGALSS is all about.
“We are quite convinced that when we put in place this work plan and budget, with timelines and deliverables, we will do the unimaginable”, he said.
Atama stated that the group would ensure that all NOGALSS members, regardless of where they work, get unhindered access to finance, healthcare, pension and housing.
President of NOGALSS Multipurpose Cooperative Society, Mr Noah Emmanuel, said the cooperative was a product of the 2018 National Council on Education.
Emmanuel said the council resolved that all education stakeholders should think out of the box to fund education.
“We, as the umbrella body of relevant NGOs, formed NOGALLS Multipurpose Cooperative Society. We are partnering with the National CFAN.
“This is to enable us among other things access interventions from the Federal Government, banks and other development partners for all our members, learners and associates.
“Today, we are gathered here guided by CFAN to develop and adopt our one-year action plan for strategic planning.
“This is to allow us to consider how the cooperative’s resources can best be focused and employed to meet member’s needs,” Emmanuel said.
National Secretary of the Society, Ms Madonna Corosi, commended the members for their hard work and commitment towards the cooperative.
Corosi said, “the workshop would serve as a roadmap  for a purposeful and success-oriented journey in the development of NOGALLS cooperative.”