From Sola Ojo, Kaduna

Kaduna State Government through the State Steering Committee on Social Investment with support from the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has organised a 3-day strategic workshop on situation analysis of Social Protection (SP) in the State.

According to the World Bank, SP systems help poor and vulnerable people come through crises and shocks, find jobs, invest in the health and education of their children, and protect the aging population.

So to enable Kaduna State to key into the SP system having more than half of its about 10 million population (2006 national census projection) living below the poverty line, the state in collaboration with stakeholders like Save the Children International (SCI) replicated the National SP in the State in 2019 with a four-year review plan, due next year.

It is against this background that a 3-day strategic workshop was organised for SP line ministries, departments and agencies, and civil society working around SP in the State to look into the successes, challenges, and prospects of the policy ahead of its next review.

Speaking during the workshop held at a hotel in Zaria, Social Policy Specialist, UNICEF, Kano Field Office, Fatima Musa Muhammed noted that UNICEF has been supporting the State in reducing poverty as it affects children in line with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 1 which has to do with poverty reduction.

“So social protection is a very key instrument in reducing poverty among the populace including children.

“We are here with Kaduna State stakeholders because of the review of the social protection policy next year. We need to collectively look into the situation of social protection implementation in Kaduna State.

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“So far we had the policy, costed implementation plan, and social protection monitoring and evaluation framework which is expected to have been operational as we speak.

“So as we await the implementation of the social security law, we want to see what we can input in our social protection policy. We need to know how has been the journey – the success, challenges, and emerging issues in the fiscal space like what has been the budget allocation, releases, and cash back for social protection programmes since 2019 when the policy was approved by the State Executive Council.

“We are going to be supporting the State henceforth to review its SP policy. We need to ensure good investment in children specific and that is the main thing as far as UNICEF is concerned”, she added.

In an interview on the sideline of the event, the Consultant for the situation analysis for Kaduna State SP policy, Nathan Williams, reiterated that the rationale behind the analysis was to identify opportunities, challenges, and prospects the State has recorded in the implementation of the policy since 2019.

“As the four-year implementation period runs out, this analysis is necessary to bring out the crucial points so the policy can respond to emerging needs and changes in the sociopolitical economic realities in the State.

“Thus far, we have been able to identify prospects and challenges and we have also come up with some ideas to overcome those issues.

“One of the biggest challenges that have come to the fore is that the coverage, quality, and frequency of SP programmes is very low. It is so low that it is not enough to bring out the benefits of SP to the wider proportion of poor and vulnerable populations.

“From our deliberation in these past three days, much could not be done due to scarce resources deployed to SP. At the end of the day, we are coming up with actionable ideas that can help in the review of the policy next year towards expanding quality and frequency of SP programmes so that it can benefit the wider percentage of the population of Kaduna State”, he explained.