Washington DC – Dr Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the Coordinating Minister for the Economy, has solicited the World Bank’s support to create a good data base to help improve the social safety nets in Nigeria.
She spoke on Sunday at the on-going Spring Meeting of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington DC.
Okonjo-Iweala said the social safety nets had helped many countries to reduce poverty and unemployment rates but noted that it could be achieved with effective data base.
“The very important thing for a successful social safety net is targeting, you must have the bases to be able to target those who need help.
“So, I insisted that we don’t have a data base to know who are the poor and what level of income in Nigeria.
“It is not enough to know that 50, 60 or 70 per cent of the population are poor; you need to have data on the poor households because they are the ones to come up and collect the safety net.’’
Okonjo-Iweala said that Brazil had proved successful on social safety net because of its comprehensive data base of the people, which helped in disbursing funds to the right people.
According to the finance minister, Nigeria has yet to get the perfect key to a successful social safety net.
“But we don’t have one that we can rely on and not every State has one. So, I am saying to the World Bank and we are not the only country, help us to build this data base.’’
She said that under the SURE programme, there would be a soft targeted programme that would give conditional cash grant to pregnant women.
Also, Dr Peter Obi, the Governor of Anambra State, said the World Bank in Nigeria had helped some States to build statistics in the country.
He said that some state governments had developed bureaux of statistics that had been backed by the law and properly domesticated.
“This is what the World Bank and other institutions are helping us to upgrade because without that, there’s no way you can work or plan.
“Some of the States, I know there are about two or three of us, Anambra and Cross River, that are working on it, following the World Bank plan.
Dear Readers, Good and credible news reportage is tedious task and requires huge finances.
We are soliciting your Noble support for as low as N1,000 your support would go a long way in assisting us to continue to guarantee our readers quality news.
Bank transfers can be made to:
Account Name: Harvest and Commercial
Bank: Sterling Bank
Account Number: 0078627735