FG urges States to domesticate National Social Protection Policy

The Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Budget and National Planning, Olajide Odewale, has called on the states to embrace, adapt and domesticate the National Social Protection Policy so that it can be sustained after the withdrawal of federal support.
Odewale made this call in his remarks at a Stakeholders Meeting on the presentation of the guidelines to domestication of the National Social Protection Policy, Child Poverty Report, and Other Strategic Documents towards the Implementation of the NSPP.
He lauded the Federal Executive Council for approving the NSPP and also appreciated the role the Special Adviser to the President on Social Intervention Programne, Maryam Uwais, played in the implementation of some of the strategies identified in the policy.
The permanent secretary also pledged that the Ministry of Budget and Planning will share the National Social Protection Policy draft guidelines with States for domestication.
Odewale also listed out the challenges confronting the country to include: having an approximate 10.5 million out of school children, increased incidences of malnutrition, forced labour, multi-dimensional poverty, insurgency that had sent families in to deeper poverty and communal crises.
This, according to him, had caused economic hardship to otherwise relatively comfortable communities.
Accordingly, he disclosed that MBNP in collaboration with UNICEF, had embarked on providing evidence based reports that will help government make informed decisions/policies that are geared towards reducing extreme poverty and vulnerabilities in Nigeria.
In her goodwill message, Uwais commended the stakeholders for their support in ensuring that the Social Protection Policy came into being and was approved by the Federal Executive Council in 2017.
She stated that the School Feeding Programme of the SIP is empowering farmers and putting measures geared towards bringing the poverty level to the lowest level.
Uwais disclosed that only two states have domesticated the National Social Protection Policy, hence the call for the states to domesticate, in order to realise its full objectives to Nigerian Citizens.