9th March, 2020
The Oyo State Government has appealed to the World Bank to allow the participation of the state in its poverty reduction programmes.
Mr Niyi Farinto, the State Commissioner for Budget and Planning, made the appeal on Monday at the opening ceremony of a training programme held in Oyo town.
The refresher/step down training ceremony was organised by the State Operations Coordinating Unit(SOCU).
SOCU is the coordinating unit of the World Bank assisted Youth Employment and Social Support Operation(YESSO) for Community Based Targeting (CBT) teams, Enumerators and Supervisors.
Farinto, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mrs Foluke Adeniyi, said the fifth round of the CBT exercise was the last in the programme scheduled to expire in June.
“I am using this opportunity to appeal to the World Bank to allow the participation of Oyo State in its follow on projects which we have been made to understand would be bigger and wider than YESSO when eventually the programme closes shop in June 2020,” he said.
The commissioner said that the World Bank YESSO was a collaborative brainchild of the Federal Government and the World Bank with the active involvement of state and local governments.
“The main objective of the programme is poverty reduction by providing increased access to employment opportunities and social service delivery to the poorest of the poor citizens of the country,” he said.
He said that the YESSO programme was designed to provide a framework to tackle unemployment, most especially among the core poor citizens of the state.
“The YESSO activities which commenced in 2013 has some good stories to tell. They include the establishment of a database of the poor and vulnerable which contains 107,839 individuals derived from 29,098 households.
“It was from the data that some 6,755 youths from poor households were picked at various time to enjoy N7,500 monthly stipend for their participation in labour-intensive works in their various communities.
“Another set of 1,443 youths had also participated in the skills for job component of YESSO going home with N7,500 on monthly basis during their nine months training,” he said.
Mrs Laide Lasisi, the SOCU State Coordinator, said that the training was aimed at educating the officials on the principles and practice of community-based targeting exercise.
She said that the training would help in teaching the officials on how to go about the process of identifying the poor and vulnerable in the community.
Lasisi said that the exercise was community-driven, adding that the community members would drive the process while the trained officials would facilitate the outcome.
“For this fifth round, we shall be operating in 12 local government areas. But contrary to what happened in the past, when we go into a local government now, we are targeting 60 communities at a go.
“And that way, we believe we will be able to ramp up the figure in the social register of the poor and vulnerable. By the way, the programme is ending in June 2020, so we want to use the limited time that we have to fast track some of these processes.
“We try to peg them at 40 households per community, but really they have more than that. There is now provision for as many people they can bring. We will accommodate them,” she said.
Mrs Susan Adedeji, a participant and CBT Computer Operator from Kajola Local Government, called on the government to ensure the programme was devoid of politics and focused on the targeted audience.
Also speaking, Mr Olutayo Oladosu, a participant and CBT Planning Officer from Ido Local Government, called for better remuneration for the officials toward the task of pursuing a reliable data.