The Kaduna State Government has captured 2.1 million individuals from 524,424 Poor and Vulnerable Households (PVHHs) in its Social Register.
The Coordinator of the State Operations Coordinating Unit (SOCU), Planning and Budget Commission, Nina Dawong, made this known at a one-day media roundtable on the state of the State Social Register.
Mrs Dawong explained that SOCU was saddled with the responsibility of generating and maintaining the Social Register of the poor and vulnerable households in the state.
She explained that the data was mined by the Federal Government in the delivery of its Cash Transfer programme and other social protection programmes.
Mrs Dawong added that the register would be made available for development partners, organisations and non-governmental organisations to mine from for various social protection interventions.
She said that the 524,424 PVHHs consist of 2.1 million individuals in 166 wards, from 5,504 communities across the 23 local government areas of the state.
The coordinator said that populating the register commenced with 16,494 PVHHs and 71,305 individuals in 2017 and grew over the years to 524,424 PVHHs with 2,051,972 individuals as of February 2021.
She said that 93.6 per cent of the 524,424 PVHHs live in rural areas while 6.4 per cent were in urban centres.
She said that Kachia LGA has the highest number of PVHHs with 41,205 PVHHs captured in the register, followed by Sanga with 37,508 PVHHs and Kajuru LGA with 36,233 PVHHs.
Mrs Dawong identified the local government areas with the least number of PVHHs in the register as Zangon Kataf with 9,222 households, Soba 10,388 households and Jema’a with 11,027.
“Of the 2.1 million individuals, 1.1 million, representing 52.2 per cent are females, 981,845, representing 47.9 per cent are males and 46,836, representing 2.3 per cent are people living with disability.
“Also 25 per cent of the heads of the PVHH are unemployed, 45.2 per cent are farmers, 0.1 per cent are pensioners and 12,.8 per cent are housewives and house help.
“On education status, 63.6 per cent of the head of households had no formal education, 11.3 per cent had primary education, and 15.9 per cent had senior secondary school education.
“More so, 3.8 has junior secondary school education, 1.5 with National Diploma, while 0.5 has Higher National Diploma and bachelor’s degree respectively and 1.2 has (a) certificate of education,” he said.
The coordinator added that in age distribution, 34 per cent of individuals in the register were between the ages of 16 to 35, and 28 per cent between the ages of six to 15.
She added that children from zero to five years made up 14 per cent, those between 36 to 65 years, 20 per cent, while those from 65 years and above made up four per cent.
The Head of Operations, SOCU, Biya Dogon, explained that the register was being generated through a comprehensive process known as Community Based Targeting (CBT).
Mr Dogon explained that through the process, the community defines poverty and identifies those that should be captured in the register.
He said that the CBT process began in 2017 in nine pilot local government areas (LGAs), three from each senatorial zone, Ikara, Kubau, Lere, Birnin Gwari, Chikun, Kajuru, Kachia, Kauru and Sanga.
“However, in May 2020, the process was scaled-up to the remaining fourteen LGAs, thus covering the entire state.
The Permanent Secretary, PBC, Mahmoud Yamusa, pointed out that the SSR would promote inclusiveness in the delivery of social protection intervention in the state.
Mr Yamusa said that Kaduna State was one of the first in the country to pursue efficient delivery of safety-nets interventions to target poor and vulnerable residents in an inclusive and transparent manner.
Earlier, the Executive Director, Jalad Media Concept, Joshua James explained that the engagement was organised to promote interactions between SOCU and the media.
According to him, media engagement is key to ensuring that citizens are well informed about government activities and intervention to enlist their support.
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