Lagos is partnering the Federal Government to strengthen social protection. This includes safeguarding the well-being and livelihoods of Nigerians, DANIEL ESSIET reports.
BEFORE the COVID-19 pandemic, many Nigerians were confronting social and economic shocks. The number of containment measures taken had highlighted existing vulnerabilities across society.
In Lagos, the Commissioner for Wealth Creation and Employment, Yetunde Arobieke, said strengthening social protection became a key component of the government’s strategy to reach families across state.
Before the pandemic, she said the government had been looking for solutions, and working with partners to tackle poverty, build human capital, and improve the skills of poor and vulnerable families.
According to her, social protection programmes are at the heart of the government’s action plan to lift people and their families out of poverty.
Consequently, she said the state embraced the national social investment programme (NSIP) of the Federal Government, which is a component of the National Social Safety Net Projects (NASSP). She said NSIP, supported by the World Bank, is focused on ensuring a more equitable distribution to vulnerable population, including children, youths and women.
She listed the programmes to include National School Feeding Programme, N-Power, National Conditional Cash Transfer and Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP).
She continued: “To ensure effectiveness and efficient of these programmes and that resources meant for integrated National Social investment programme are monitored, the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (MHADMSD) has identified independent monitors across the country and 206 were, specifically, trained to monitor these programmes in Lagos.”
Social Protection has helped to provide better investments to the people, including fast-tracking CCT to households which Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, approved in April, last year to help the less privileged, she added.
Chairman House Committee on Wealth Creation and Employment, Hon. Jude Emeka Idumogu said the government’s support efforts to expand and strengthen social protection mechanisms to safeguard well-being and livelihoods, leaving no one behind in country response and recovery plans.
Speaking during the kick off of the distribution in Lagos, the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Alhaja Sadiya Farouq, noted, however, that they must reach 80 percent of their deliverables monthly to be eligible for their stipend, adding that the duration of their assignment is for one year from June 1, 2021 to May 31, 2022.
The minister, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the ministry, Bashir Nura Alkali, said a social investment management information system (SIMIS) application to monitor programmes under the NSIP, had been launched.
She explained that President Muhammadu Buhari launched NSIP in 2016 to lift Nigerians out of poverty.
Some of the NSIP’s intervention include N-Power, national home-grown school feeding programme (NHGSFP), and conditional cash transfer programme (CCT).
She recalled that in February, this year, the Federal Government kicked off the training of 5,000 independent monitors for NSIP.
The Minster also said the devices given out were equipped with applications that will be used for monitors.
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