The vice president, Prof Yemi Osinbajo, has said that the scope and depth of the Geo-Referenced Infrastructure and Demographic Data for Development project (GRID3) will enhance Nigeria’s aspirations for financial inclusion, agricultural development and improvement in nationwide school enrollment, amongst others,
Osinbajo stated this yesterday at the inauguration of the National Steering and Technical Committees for GRID3 project, at the Presidential Villa.
The GRID3 is a project supported by development partners to generate, validate and use geo-spatial data on population, settlements, infrastructure, and administrative boundaries.
“There is no question at all from just listening and reading the information on GRID3 that this is a crucial project.
“Geo-Spatial data of the scope and depth that is envisaged by this project is obviously important for all of our development objectives and ambitions especially the issue of education which we just saw a demonstration, I think is compelling.
“And it really does show that this is extremely useful for us in planning, and for everybody involved in the entire development enterprise.
“Even the financial inclusion initiative will also benefit greatly from the GRID3 project,” he said.
The vice president commended the initiators of the project in setting up the two committees to drive the project.
“I think there is some ingenuity in having double membership in the committees because that enables data users and generators to come together to be able to interact at the same time,” he said.
He also observed that there is the need to involve the states “a bit more in terms of membership of the two committees.
“We have to involve the governors even if it is going to be representation across the geo-political zones.
“This is because for most of the human capacity development issues, the sub-nationals are most crucial. As a matter of fact they are ones who drive most of those initiatives.”
Earlier, the minister of finance, budget and national planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, who chairs the steering committee, had said that the GRID3 project would amongst other things help in the development of a national infrastructure data plan for the country.
