Coalition Lauds Kaduna Govt., SCI Commitment to Reducing Multi-dimensional Poverty
From: Femi Mustapha
The Kaduna Social Protection Accountability Coalition (KADSPAC), has commended the Kaduna State Government for its commitment towards reducing multi-. dimensional poverty in the State.
Speaking at the Kaduna Social Protection Summit, the Chairperson of Kaduna Social Protection Accountability Coalition (KADSPAC), Jessica Bartholomew, said that the Coalition is excited that the Executive Governor, Sen. Uba Sani, has shown commitment to alleviating poverty in the State.
She opined that the Summit has projected to the world, how Kaduna State prioritizes Social protection as a tool to reduce poverty.
“I’m also happy about the Governor’s agenda. He has announced three interventions, one is the universal child grant, and the second is the grant for empowering women and children.
“As a result of this summit, the government has seen the need to invest more in social protection, and we are happy because 8.04 million people need to be provided some succor, and that succor is social protection interventions.
Ms Jessica stressed that the implementation of Social Protection Interventions is the only tool necessary for the State to reduce poverty.
Similarly, she also applauded the efforts of Save the Children International (SCI,) in ensuring the success of the program.
The KADSPAC Chairperson noted that the implementation of the Expanding Social Protection for Inclusive Development (ESPID) Programme in Kaduna State has helped to reduce multi-dimensional poverty among children and their caregivers.
She added that the program has, over time, supported Kaduna state in several areas, including Technical assistance, Advisory support, and Capacity building, including secondment of staff to handhold, couch, and engage civil servants to enhance their capacity for effective and efficient design and delivery of social protection interventions.
“ESPID has further supported the state to design interventions, especially the famous youth focus graduation program. Also, the program has supported the state in crafting policies, strategic plans, and legislation.
“Additionally, the program has supported strategies to improve social protection delivery systems including the development of an integrated Management Information System.”
She also promised that although the summit has come to an end, the Coalition will work towards implementing all recommendations and comments received from the participants.
“We have beautiful recommendations from both the comments and speech of the Governor, Executive Secretary of KADSIPA, the Special Adviser to the Governor on social investment programs.
“We have beautiful recommendations from panel discussions on financial inclusion, on social register and even social protection, social welfare programs.
“So we are going to take all the recommendations and put it in a communique and share it with the media, so going forward, we’ll see it and track the implementation of the recommendations.
“So this is the way forward for us, ensuring that all the recommendations from this summit are implemented in Kaduna State, and we are looking forward to the next protection summit to see that we are coming back to track the implementation of those commitments for the 2024 social protection summit in Kaduna State.”
It would be recalled that Kaduna General Household Survey (2017) revealed an alarming negative statistic that 84.9% of households in Kaduna State live below the poverty line, struggling to afford necessities.