PROVIDING SAFETY NET FOR THE POOR

NASSCO, in partnership with the World Bank, is working to reduce poverty in the country, writes Efegadirim Maduabuchi

As poverty level has been on the rise on Nigeria’s social space, at the last count, pulling some 93 million citizens into the poverty trap, the National Safety nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO), an agency of the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, has been working assiduously to change this ugly narrative. NASSCO is a strategic component of the federal government established in 2016, in partnership with the World Bank to reduce the impact of poverty and socio-economic vulnerabilities in Nigeria. NASSCO’s core objective is to build Nigeria’s National Social Register (NSR), as well as harmonize and coordinate the government’s social safety-nets programs. These programs include the National Cash Transfer Office (NCTO), implementing cash transfers to targeted vulnerable households; Youth Empowerment and Social Support Operations (YESSO), supporting vulnerable youths with life skills trainings, grants and reorientation; and the Community and Social Development Project (CSDP) providing grants to boost the development agenda of vulnerable communities.

NASSCO also provides guidance and framework for administration and system management for supporting the poor and vulnerable, ensuring policy coherence in the social protection sector. Currently, the agency is in the process of building a register of the urban poor, particularly those whose livelihoods have been impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. This database, known as the Rapid Response Register (RRR) will serve as a gateway for extending cash transfers as a Covid-19 economic cushion, and emergency assistance in times of natural emergencies.

The saying, ‘the poor shall always be with us’ has necessitated a response: ‘so shall be various efforts to address their needs.’ Hence, the Muhammadu Buhari government has been working to lift 100 million Nigerians out of poverty. But its plan has been beset with local challenges such as insecurity and insurgencies, coupled with the current global pandemic, Covid-19, which has devastated local and global economies. As of end of 2020, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimated that the global economy would lose $28 trillion.

Thankfully, the federal government saw this as an opportunity to be creative. It created the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development (FMHADMSD) as the omnibus agency to design, implement and monitor its social intervention programmes. The ministry, established in August 2019, is headed by Hajia Sadiyya Umar Farouq. Its mission basically is to strengthen official response to complex emergencies and disaster, while providing social protection to poor and vulnerable Nigerians. The mandate of the ministry, though humanitarian in nature and protective of the rights of the vulnerable, also branches into social development. Under this mandate, the ministry inherited the National Social Safety Nets Project (NASSP) which was established in 2016 with a $500 million loan from the World Bank.

Social safety nets form part of a broad social protection systems comprising non-contributory transfers in cash or in kind, designed to provide support for the poor and vulnerable in the society and they help to alleviate poverty, address food insecurity and malnutrition; reduce inequality and boost shared prosperity. They also support households in coping with shocks; build human capital and connect people to job opportunities. More importantly, they are crucial to shaping social contract between the government and citizens.

The flagship social safety nets programs of the federal government through the Humanitarian ministry, are run through NASSCO which are: National Cash Transfer Office, which undertakes cash transfers to targeted vulnerable households; Youth Empowerment and Social Support Operations, which supports vulnerable youths with life skills trainings, grants and reorientation; and the Community and Social Development Project which provides grants to boost the development agenda of vulnerable communities. All these programs were encapsulated in the federal government’s NASSP.

By far, NASSCO established by the Buhari administration, is a marked difference with past intervention programmes in that it had been working to strengthen social safety nets and social protection system in Nigeria. Mr. Apera Iorwa, an accomplished project management professional, is the head of NASSCO.

Iorwa says, the core mandate of NASSCO is to lay a strong foundation of rigorous and reliable evidence of poor and vulnerable households in Nigeria, by building a National Social Register (NSR), as well as coordinate, refine and integrate the social safety-net programs into social protection systems, while ensuring policy coherence. NASSCO also facilitates and supports State Operations Coordinating Units (SOCUs) to conduct identification and registration of Poor and Vulnerable Households (PVHHs) and generates knowledge to inform policy and programming such as: livelihoods and knowledge management. Presently, a lot of focus is on cash transfers. Said Mr Iorwa, “In every crisis, pandemic or the great recessions of this world, global best practices depict three stages of interventions. The first one is relief. Relief usually comes in cash and food stamps where you then queue up and collect goods for free and all of that. The second one comes in small grants for small businesses which the government is doing thought CBN and giving grants, loans, survival funds, etc. And then the third one is recovery where you put them in livelihood programmes like skills for job that gives them good job. So, we are in that first stage of relief which is the cash.”

Clearly, the need for social intervention is huge. According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) in its 2019 Poverty and Inequality in Nigeria, about 40% of Nigerians or almost 83 million people, live below the poverty line of $381.75 (N137,430) a year. Put graphically, Nigeria now hosts more poor people than some countries with populations almost six times more than hers. This has given fresh impetus to the urgency of the situation.

So far, some 7,653,684 poor and vulnerable households (PVHHs), consisting of 32,682,171 individuals from 36 states of the country and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) have been enrolled in the PVHHS programme. The drive is to add an additional 20 million before long.

Incidentally, NASSCO has helped to bring openness to the process by generating and maintaining a database of the poor in Nigeria. This would help with the present intervention efforts; more importantly, it would serve as baseline for future planning by successive administrations.