State government has reiterated its desire to sustain partnership with development agencies to explore various means of promoting development of the state.

The Commissioner for Economic Planning, Budget and Development Partners, Mr. Mark Okoye stated this while declaring open, a two day 2018 end of year Inter -Agency review meeting held in Awka.

The review meeting which was organized by the Ministry of Economic Planning, Budget and Development Partners was to access the performance and interventions by all Development Partners and to ensure they finished well.

Mr. Okeye, said the meeting was an occasion to reflect on Governor Obiano’s desire for a new Anambra and to take stock of progress on ground as well as create an environment conducive for partnership support.

He disclosed that the Ministry has established a Department of Partnership Co-ordination to effectively deal with matters relating to partnership support even as he charged the project coordinators of the programs to ensure they are providing social services to the people in
moving the state forward.

The Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Donor Agencies, Mrs. Nneka Onwudiwe, maintained that the meeting is very important as it will help them to look critically at the performance of the partners, run down of their programs, implementation, challenges and outcome, stating that from the meeting, they will know how much the development partners are bringing and contributions of state government.

While highlighting the objectives of the meeting, the Head, Partnership Coordination Department Mrs. Ebere Aghaji, said the meeting was also to know the activities implemented so far, intimate
government on each agencies operation in the state and to review the achievements, constraints, lesson learnt as well as access the relevance of the program interventions in the state.

Mrs. Ngozi Ezeamaka, of FHI Three Hundred and Sixty, in her illustrations recommended increased support from both federal and state governments to support domestic funding of HIV/AIDS response to tackle the inadequate domestic funding of HIV /AIDS response dependence on donor funds.

Some of the participants who spoke to ABS, including Mr. Arthur Iweanya and Mr. Ekene Ebukora, said the meeting was a welcome development as they will evaluate what they have done, share ideas, experience and think on way forward.