Clement Adeyi, Osogbo
Towards ensuring poverty alleviation for the less privileged, particularly the people with disabilities (PWDs), Osun State Government has embarked on some micro projects to improve their living conditions.
General Manager, Osun State Agency for Community and Social Development Project (CSDP), Funmi Abokede, who stated this in Osogbo, the state capital, on Tuesday, disclosed that government, through the agency, had embarked on construction of conducive hostels and classrooms for the vulnerable.
Abokede also disclosed the CSDP had completed four micro projects that had benefitted about 3,557 vulnerable.
She said government had been very compassionate about PWDs, hence the efforts to improve their standards of living.
She disclosed that a development centre for the blind and the deaf to enable the PWDs use their skills was under construction.
Abokede also said the agency had completed 478 micro projects across sectors, including 169 rural electrifications.
She said 396 communities had benefitted from the 478 projects so far completed in the state.
“There are 478 completed gender sensitive, socially inclusive functional micro projects, cutting across different sectors in the state and these are immensely contributing to the achievements of the Osun State development plans under the leadership of Governor Gboyega Oyetola.
“396 communities are empowered to plan, part-finance, implement, monitor and maintain sustainable and socially inclusive multi-sectoral micro-projects,” she said.
Abokede revealed that since the agency started operations in 2009, over N3 billion had been spent on the projects with over N813 million contributed by the state government.
She said the project, when approved, was fully executed by the community to enable experts among them participate in the implementation.
“The project uses the Community Driven Development (CDD) that gives control of decision and resources to community groups where Participatory Rural Appraisal (PRA) of the community needs are carried out by the community members in a democratic manner to manage the project.
“The actual implementation is done by the community while the agency only facilitates fund, supervise and monitor,” she said.