Sola Ojo, Kaduna
Not waiting for the Federal, the Kaduna State Government on Thursday began a three-day capacity building training for Community Based Targeting Teams (CBTTs) and enumerators to capture 70 percent poor and vulnerable homes across the State.
Already, about 30 percent of vulnerable homes from nine local government areas of Kaduna State are already benefitting from conditional cash transfer under the National Social Safety Nets Programme (NASSP), hence, the need to capture the remaining 70 percent spread across the remaining 14 local government areas of the State. 19 team members were carefully selected from each of the 14 LGAs for the exercise.
The Kaduna State Government under Governor Nasir El-Rufai through the office of the State Operations Coordinating Unit (SOCU) with guidance from the National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office, has been working to actualize a Social Register that leaves no one or groups behind.
One of the aims of the training was to enable permanent residents of the identified community to be able to identify poor and vulnerable groups among them based on what they agreed upon as yardstick for being poor, using Proxy Mean Test (PMT) – scientifically proven way of identifying poorest of the poor.
In a remark during the training which was happening concurrently in the there senatorial zones – Zaria, Kaduna and Kafanchan due to COVID-19 social distancing guidelines, Focal Person, National Social Investment Programmes, Kaduna State, Mrs Saude Amina Atoyebi, described the development as unprecedented in the history of Kaduna State.
According to her, the training was vital to improve the needed data in Social Register without which it would be practically impossible to truly serve the poorest and vulnerable citizens in Kaduna State.
“The importance of data cannot be overemphasized especially in difficult times such as this where the provision of support to poor and vulnerable households (PVHHs) need to be backed by evidence of who these persons are and how they were identified.
“The number of PVHHs captured on the Social Register was 20,500 in 9 Local Government Areas (LGAs) only. The Governor, recognizing the importance of this data, tasked us to rapidly populate the register. Today, about 8 months later, we now have over 130,000 PVHHs across the same 9 LGAs.
“While a lot of hard work has gone into this assignment, there is still a lot of ground to be covered”, she noted.
She encouraged the trainees to be selfless in the task before them saying, ” the State Government, has this day, entrusted you with the noblest of services, to serve the poorest and most vulnerable citizens.
“Through your efforts, the PVHHs will stand a better chance at a life of dignity, which will further actualize the vision of the Governor, to ensure that no poor person sleeps hungry or suffers avoidable socio-economic shocks”, she admonished.