By Laleye Dipo in Minna
The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) has disclosed that no fewer than 415 million Africans live on less than $2 daily.
The Regional Director of ICA in Africa, Dr Shiyoge Sifa, who made this known in Minna, Niger State while delivering a lecture at the 5th congress and national workshop of the Cooperative Federation of Nigeria, said those who live on between $2 and $4 daily were the middle class who constituted about 40 per cent of the population in Africa.
Sifa, whose lecture was titled “Inclusion: Cooperatives ensure no one is left behind,” said that the ICA had launched a programme that would reduce poverty on the continent.
“We have launched the 2017- 2020 strategy to try and fast-track the 40 per cent which we never achieved.”
She said there were many factors that would work for the reduction of poverty on the continent, adding that: “The cooperatives are only part of the solution but unfortunately it’s not fully embraced by all the 54 nations on the continent.”