No fewer than 117, 424 Poor and Vulnerable Households (PVHHs) in the Kaduna State Social Register have benefited from various social protection interventions in the state from 2017 to date.
Mrs Nina Dawong, the Coordinator, State Operations and Coordinating Unit (SOCU), Planning and Budget Commission, made this known in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Kaduna on Friday.
Dawong explained that the state government with support of the National Social Safety-Nets Coordination Office had been building a database of the poor and vulnerable for planning and targeted support since 2017.
She said that so far, 524,424 PVHHs had been captured, comprising 2.1 million individuals in the social register across all Local Government Areas in the state.
Dawong said that following Gov. Nasir El-Rufai’s directive, all beneficiaries of social protection interventions and other things pro-poor support from governments and stakeholders were being selected from the register.
She said that 36, 236 PVHHs selected from the register were currently benefiting from the Federal Government Cash Transfer programme and other social protection programmes.
The coordinator added that 1,000 women from the register equally benefitted from the recent N20,000 grant to rural women disbursed by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
“Also, the Kaduna State Contributory Health Management Authority had selected 29,153 beneficiaries for its first and second phase health insurance scheme for the poor and vulnerable.
“The beneficiaries are made up of individuals aged zero to five years, those over 65 year’s old, pregnant women and persons with disabilities.
“Also, 41, 005 households from the register benefited from the Coalition against COVID-19 palliative distributions in the state.
“The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) equally selected 230 PVHHs headed by women from the register for its agricultural financing intervention,” she said.
Dawong said that Aid Foundation also selected 5,000 beneficiaries from the register and distributed personal protective equipment to them under its clean family campaign.
According to her, Uba Sani Foundation equally selected 2,800 PVHH for its financial inclusion intervention, while 1,000 women led PVHHs equally benefited from the Grant for Rural Women Project’s financial inclusion programme.
The coordinator said that Epilepsy Foundation of Nigerian also selected 1, 000 persons with epilepsy and other disabilities from the register for its programme.
NAN reports that El-Rufai had at the inauguration of the state Social Protection Policy in February directed that all beneficiaries of social protection interventions be selected from the social register.
El-Rufai pointed out that the current slot in which important individuals were allocated space for pro-poor interventions was working against targeting the poor and vulnerable people who deserve such interventions.
“This is unfortunate. We must move away from this slot mentality and use our social register to offer targeted support to those that truly need it.
“We must drop this slot mentality and use the social register so that programmes targeting the poor and vulnerable actually go to the poor and vulnerable,” he said.
