‘Act Naija’ Social Development Initiative Debuts in 7 States, FCT

Kuni Tyessi in Abuja

A new initiative targeting social development and poverty reduction tagged ‘Act Naija’ has commenced in seven states namely Kogi, Delta, Enugu, Indo, Osun, Ekiti, Borno and the Federal Capital Territory.

The multi-dimensional social development initiative which is in collaboration with European Union, Brot, New Initiative for Social Development, NISD, and Africa Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, will have a life span of 36 months.

Speaking yesterday in Abuja at the project kick-off conference management workshop, Deputy Executive Director of ANEEj, Leo Atakpu, said the key areas of the project will be centered on the building of resilience and inclusion of democratic societies that aligns with the Sustainable Development Goals numbers 1, 16 and 17 which focuses on addressing poverty eradication and strong institutions.

He said the poverty figures in Nigeria are alarming and unfortunate and for this reason, “the 133 million Nigerians out of over 200 million are our key targets because they are living in multi-dimensional poverty. So, we must target the poorest of the poor to ensure that we pull them out of the poverty line.”

He said in terms of scope and target groups, Act Naija will reach out to over 2,120 individuals- targeting 149 civil society organisations, 30 community-based organisations and five persons with deep stability groups.

“Others are 1,000 women groups members including 30 traders and farmers, 300 youth leaders, 60 media professionals, 80 government officials, private/sector international agencies and 45 internally displaced persons in Born State will be reached and targeted.”

To clear doubts and misconceptions, he revealed that for the choice of benefitting states, there were special considerations that were deployed to arrive at the choices which includes poverty, social protection laws, natural and man-made disasters amongst other indices.

His words: “They include poverty indicators, the collapse of the dam in Borno state which created some displacements and increased the banditry and terrorism impact was also considered for the choice of Borno State.

“Social protection law was also considered. Some states have social protection law and some don’t have. States that do not have will be targeted. For the states that already have, implementation is another problem. With this, we will also have to engage the government.”

He assured that governors of states without social protection laws will be engaged and encouraged to have such laws with some level of regulations, while policy makers will also be engaged for the sole aim of expansion to other states.