A Bauchi-based NGO, Development and Exchange Centre (DEC), said yesterday in Bauchi that it had disbursed N292 million micro-credit loan facility to 30,000 women in nine northern states.

The organisation said in a statistics made available to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) that the loans were disbursed between January and December.

It said that the gesture was designed to reduce poverty and enhance the economic status of women in the affected states.

It said that the loans were distributed through the various micro-finance credit facilities initiated to enhance women economic empowerment and boost productivity.

The statistics listed Adamawa, Bauchi, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, Yobe, Plateau, Nasarawa and Jigawa states as beneficiaries of the scheme.

"Women savings has increased to about N119 million, while recovery also increased to about 94 per cent of the total loan disbursed,'" it said.

A breakdown of the loan disbursement showed that various women cooperatives societies were provided with capital to enable them engage in livestock, poultry, fisheries, crop production and agricultural processing.

"DEC has mobilised and helped thousands of women to rediscover their human dignity and rise above poverty and ignorance through its various services," the statistics said.

According to the statistics, the organisation had set up 12 micro-finance offices for effective running of its activities and promote greater participation by women in the benefiting states.

On social services, the statistics said that the organisation had provided bore holes in some 12 selected communities and constructed pit latrines in some primary schools, under its water and sanitation intervention programme.

"DEC has established literacy classes in Bauchi, Yobe, Gombe and Adamawa," it said.

NAN reports that the organisation was set up in 1987 to assist women in the north-east zone to improve their education and economic status. (NAN)