The Coordinating Office of the National Social Safety-Net Programme (NSSP) said on Thursday that only identified poor and vulnerable households in communities would benefits from government’s pro-poor interventions.
Mr Dahiru Soba, Head, Monitoring and Evaluation and Managing Information System, State Operations Coordinating Unit (SOCU), Kaduna State, said this in Kafanchan while speaking at a three-day capacity building training on Community-Based Targeting process.
The training was organised by the Office of the Focal Person, National Social Investment Programme and the State Operations Coordinating Unit, in collaboration with National Social Safety-net Coordinating Office (NASSCO).
He said that the Federal Government had set up the NASSP to enable the effective identification and targeting of vulnerable households in the country with a view to supporting them.
According to him, the Federal Government, through NASSCO, is building the National Social Register (NSR) of Poor and Vulnerable Households (PVHH), through geographic targeting, community-based targeting and proxy mean test mechanism.
“This is for reliability and to ensure that resources go to the intended beneficiaries.
“The geographic targeting of PVHHs involves the use of poverty map across states for a basis for the classification, ranking and selection of participating local government areas.
“Also, the community-based targeting allows the community to identify, validate and select specific members that meet criteria of PVHHs to be enrolled in the NSR.
“On the other hand, the proxy mean test allows ranking of households based on pre-determined criteria from the poor to the poorest for targeted interventions like the cash transfer programme,” Soba said.
He further said that 95 enumerators and community-based targeting teams in five Local Government Areas from Kaduna South Senatorial Zone, were participating in the training.
The SUCO boss identified the LGAs as Jema’a, Kaura, Jaba, Zangon Kataf and Kagarko.
He noted that the objective of the raining was to improve the knowledge of the participants on social protection and build their capacity on community-based targeting process.
Earlier, Mr John Samson, one of the facilitators, observed that economic growth in the country had not translated to diversified income for poor families.
Samson said that social protection was one way of bridging the inequality gap, by ensuring that resources were spread evenly among the people and across the country.
He explained that social protection comprised all policies and programmes formulated to prevent and reduce poverty, as well as socio-economic shocks of individuals and households.
“It also involves enhancing the social status and rights of the marginalised, the deprived and the vulnerable households and their inhabitants,” he said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training was conducted with strict compliance to safety measures against Coronavirus, particularly the use of face mask, social distancing, and hand sanitizer. (NAN)
