In order to ensure that the data that will be used for poverty alleviation initiatives, such as cash transfers, are accurate, the federal government started verifying individuals listed on the National Social Register (NSR) in communities throughout Lagos and the states in the South Western region. Dr. Betta Edu, who serves as the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, kicked started the exercise in Lagos state, even though it is planned to take place simultaneously across the entire country.
Also, she said the programme would continue for three weeks, during which time the government would collect accurate data and work towards achieving the intervention’s stated goals. The Nigerian government plans to distribute money to individual households in order to help them with things like starting businesses, making ends meet, sending their children to school, improving their access to social services, reducing the cost of their daily commute, meeting their basic health care needs, creating jobs, and so on.
Transparency of the cash distribution will be ensured.
To achieve the initiatives goal, it is necessary to conduct verification of the National Social Register; the President has given his approval for this effort to ensure that the NSR accurately represents the poor. Dr. Edu emphasised the importance of double-checking the register to ensure that only those who truly need assistance are listed and those who don’t belong there are removed. Those on the register should live on less than $1.95 per day and be afflicted by multi-dimensional poverty.
After going door to door in Makoko, a remote suburb of Lagos, to verify the register, the minister announced that the federal government was prepared to put money into the people’s hands to help them with their businesses, the children’s education, their livelihoods, and the creation of opportunities. She believes that the activity serves as an integrity evaluation. President Bola Tinubu has asked for transparency on the distribution of conditional cash payments. He hopes to make a real difference in the lives of the underprivileged.
All regions will be covered by the initiatives.
She stated that those who were found would be investigated to determine whether or not they were entitled to be included on the register and that the gaps in coverage would be filled in. She stated that they are targeting communities as well as specific geographic areas. They have seen that certain regions of Adogbo, Oko Agbon, Migbewhe, Sogunro, Makoko, and Apollo villages have been patrolled by NSR, whilst other regions have yet to be captured.
They are working with states and local communities all around the country to launch these initiatives. To get NSR with integrity, the governors of the respective states will chair the steering committees at the state level, while the local government areas and community leaders will be engaged. She explained that the organisation’s goal is to eliminate any possibility of political, societal, or individual bias in the distribution of the funds by ensuring that the recipients are those who can most benefit from them.
Enhancing social safety nets is vital to ending severe poverty.
According to Abdulaziz Danladi, national coordinator for the National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO), enhancing the social safety nets as well as social protection system in the nation is a vital approach to assist in ending severe poverty and promoting shared prosperity. Rasheed Zubair, the minister’s special adviser on media and publicity, issued a statement in which Danladi emphasised that NASSCO primary responsibility is to provide solid groundwork for collecting and analysing rigorous and verifiable evidence of low-income and vulnerable households in Nigeria.
Related Link
NASSCO: Website
