By Kayode Abdulazeez, Ilorin
The poor and vulnerable people in Nigeria communities has been challenged to come up with their problems in group and community in order to access the world bank and states government partnership grant, designed to uplift the standard of living of the poorest people and community in Nigeria.
The call was made by the representative of World Bank and Task Team leader of Community and Social Development Programme, Professor Folusho Ogunmayewa at Kwara Hotel Ilorin on 2-day meeting tagged “Gender and Vulnerable Groups Manual Adoption and 2017 Budget Deliverables”.
In his lecture Prof. Folusho Ogunmayewa said the meeting was organised to review the performance of community and social development projects of 2016 in all the participating states, as well as planning for the budget and work plan of 2017 projects.
According to him, “apart from the fact that the poor communities are already benefitting from community and social development programme, there is a provision to provide another set of assistance to vulnerable groups, particularly now that the issue of vulnerable groups is emerging strongly especially in the North East.
Ogunmayewa pointed out that a new manual is being developed to cater for how to support these groups; added that the manual is in draft that the meeting was a review to adopt it for 2017 projects execution.
The University don equally made it known that community and social development programme was a project that uses good mechanism to create a partnership between government and the communities, particularly the poor communities.
“This a mechanism that gives ownership, control and usage of service to the poor themselves and it has been working perfectly for the past 15 years in Nigeria and it is gaining ground, spreading and the World Banks has made additional provision of resources.”
The National Coordinator of Community Social Development Programme, Federal Projects Support Unit, Dr. Abdulkareem Obaje remarked that participating states in Nigeria are doing fine supporting the programme based on the agreement, adding that the states have paid their project financial contributions and they have received fund from the bank for their various projects.
He explained further that the Community and Social Development Programme (CSDP) does not do individual grant, is designed for groups and communities, and it is a kind of project that such communities must have conceived by themselves without the influence of outsider. The programme is on first-come-first-serve base, without disenfranchising any community or groups as far they meet the criteria. Community or group can apply through their state offices in all the participating states in the country.