By Abdallah el-Kurebe
The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF; United Nations Development Programme, UNDP; World Food Programme, WFP and the International Labour Organisation, ILO, have organised a training for the technical working group for the development of Sokoto State Social Protection Policy, SSSPP.
Organised in conjunction of the state government to hold in Birnin Kebbi, capital of Kebbi state, the training is scheduled to hold between August 9th and 11th 2021.
The Social Protection Policy in Nigeria, which is funded by the UN Joint SDG Programme and implemented by UNICEF, UNDP, WFP and ILO, has Sokoto as its pilot state.
The objectives of the training include: To reinforce and strengthen participants’ capacity on social policy design and legal framework of social protection; increase participants’ knowledge and capacity on social protection; for implementing partners to present updates on joint programme activities; to sensitize participants on upcoming joint programme activities, including cash transfer design modalities, monitoring and evaluation in Sokoto State and to internally validate the draft Sokoto State Social Protection Policy.
Declaring the workshop open, the state commissioner, Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, Mainasara Ahmed, who was represented by the acting Permanent Secretary, Usman Arzika gave an overview of the state social protection while identifying key stakeholders.
He spoke of the integration of initial 5,000 beneficiaries into the state policy.
Ahmed described the media as most critical in awareness creation, sensitization and implementation of the policy in the state.
Goodwill messages were delivered by representatives of UNICEF, UNDP, WFP and ILO, Sultanate Council, state House of Assembly and Civil Society Organisations.
In his goodwill message, the representative of the Sultanate Council and District Head of Kilgori, Dr Jabbi Muhammad said “social protection is very critical and the need to have a solid social policy is very critical. Traditional rulers are in position to help in its implementation in view of their closeness to the people.”
The UNICEF Chief of Social Policy, Hamidou Poufon who spoke from Abuja expressed happiness at Sokoto government’s commitment to the development of the policy.
“We can really see the commitment of Sokoto state government on the development of social protection policy for the state.”
