One of the decisions reached at the end of Wednesday’s Federal Executive Council Meeting (FEC), was the approval for Nigeria to join the International Organisation of French speaking countries; the International Organization of the Francophonie (IOF).
This move agreed upon by the cabinet of Ministers is expected to further enhance the development of the nation’s education sector.
Nigeria is surrounded by many French speaking countries in the West Africa sub-region and the council noted the need for the country to effectively interact with it neighbours even though the country is not French speaking.
According to its English version of its website, the IOF which was established in 1970, has a mission to “embody the active solidarity between its 75 member states and governments (56 members and 19 observers) which together represent over one-third of the United Nations’ member states and accounts for a population of over 890 million people, including 220 million French speakers..”
FEC also approved the ratification of the agreement between Nigeria and Sweden to ensure that businessmen in the two countries do not surfer double taxation. The objective is to encourage investments in the country.
An initiative targeted at giving a stronger support to Nigerian women by providing over five million Nigerian women with mobile phones in the next couple of years was also approved by the Federal Executive Council.
The initiative is expected to enable the women folk have access to information in the agriculture incentives of the Federal Government.
The initiative will be a collaboration amongst the Ministries of Women Affairs, Agriculture, Works, Communication Technology, Water resources and Health.