Lagos State Government and the World Bank are scaling up strategies to create a detailed and credible data bank, which will be used for social intervention programmes.
This is part of efforts towards providing support for the poor and the vulnerable.
Receiving the World Bank Country Director, Nigeria, Mr. Shubaham Chaudhuri, in his office, the Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr. Sam Egube, said Lagos always looked forward to interventions like the Social Safety Nets initiatives, with the generation and maintenance of a Single Social Register (SSR), to implement its humanitarian programmes, especially when it involved the World Bank.
He said the ministry’s responsibility of resource allocation and performance management was charged with the engagement of the initiative in the state by the Federal Government, to achieve the expected outcome, using the social register.
Egube said the move necessitated the setting up of the Social Operation Coordinating Unit (SOCU) as a full-fledged department to drive the SSR for implementation of intervention programmes for the poor and vulnerable, to cushion the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic and upsurge in food prices.
He said: “Apart from the fact that the social register helps us as a government to reach out accurately, it helps us mine a wider range of data because we are able to connect with the different aspects of their living.”
Recalling a recent meeting with Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu, Mr. Chaudhuri said he pleaded with the governor and his colleagues on the need to own the initiative, not leaving it in the hands of the Federal Government alone.
Present at the meeting were World Bank Task Team Leader Mr. Muderis Abdullahi Mohammed, the Special Adviser to the Governor on Economic Planning and Budget, Aare Bayo Sodade, and other top officials of the ministry.