Olawale Ajimotokan in Abuja
The Community and Social Development Project (CSDP) has officially been concluded with over 11 million direct beneficiaries across the 29 states and an estimated 25 million indirect beneficiaries.
The programme was shut down yesterday by the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Sadiya Umar Farouq.
During it’s over 11-year span, CSDP successfully completed16, 166 micro-projects in 5,664 communities and 934 vulnerable groups. The micro-projects cut across eight sectors of intervention namely education, health, water, transportation, electrification, socio-economic, environment and community housing.
In addition, 5,764 classrooms, 1,323 health centres and 4,442 water micro projects were constructed and/or rehabilitated.
The minister said the CSDP operated with the core principle of Community Driven Development (CDD) approach.
The 11-year old programme was launched in 2009, for the implementation of the Social Protection Programmes of the federal government through the National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO) and now supervised by the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development.
“This is a development paradigm that focuses on the needs of the poor and vulnerable and empowering them with development resources to address their peculiar needs.
“Using this unique approach, the CSDP has implemented micro projects in poor communities across the 543 local government areas of 29 states and the FCT.
“The poor communities are identified specifically through the use of Poverty Maps agreed to by each participating State and FCT,” she said.
The minister also thanked the World Bank and the state governments who contributed and participated in the project.
In his goodwill message, the Governor of Ekiti state Dr Kayode Fayemi spoke on the topic, ‘Repositioning Nigeria for Greatness and Development: The Imperatives of Community Driven Development.”
He described the CSDP as one of the most impactful development projects of the World Bank and a great legacy.
Bauchi emerged winner of the State Agency with the highest number of completed micro projects of 916, while Cross River was named the state government with the highest amount of government contribution award with a total of N1, 646, 835, 451.71.
