Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo has flagged off the cash
transfer of N5,000 to low-income earners in urban areas as part of efforts to
ease the impact of COVID-19 on the economy.
The federal government is giving the low-income earners the
money under the Rapid Response Register (RRR) and beneficiaries will receive
the stipend for six months.
The target beneficiaries are “self-employed”, “wage
employed” and “urban poor.”
The ministry of humanitarian affairs, using “cutting-edge”
technology, had undertaken a pilot scheme where over 100,000 beneficiaries in
Lagos and the federal capital territory (FCT) were captured.
Over 300,000 beneficiaries are said to have received the
aforementioned sum the moment the scheme was launched.
Speaking at the virtual flag off of the RRR in Abuja on
Tuesday, Osinbajo said this set of vulnerable people were not captured in the
National Social Register (NSR).
“This category of people, who were not previously captured
in the social register, the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, working with the
National Social Safety-Nets Programme (NASSP), designed an intervention to
rapidly identify, register and provide them with succour. Hence, the Rapid
Response Register (RRR) was born,” the vice-president said.
“The RRR is designed to focus mainly on the urban poor wards
selected using scientifically validated methods of satellite remote sensing
technology, machine learning algorithm and big data analysis.
“This social protection method of targeting is the first
strategy to be developed and tested in the Sub-Saharan Africa region and
Nigeria will be the first country for its implementation.
“With the RRR, which uses a wholly technology-based
approach, we are primed to achieve an end-to-end digital foot-print in cash
transfers for the urban poor; which also helps us achieve our financial
inclusion policy under the Enhancing Financial Innovation and Access programme
(EFInA).
“The groundbreaking success of the RRR, now emboldens us to
achieve our aspiration of a social security programme for a minimum of twenty
million Nigerians in the next two years.”
Earlier, Sadiya Farouq, minister of humanitarian affairs,
said there is a need for the government to ameliorate hardship of low-income
earners in urban areas.
“One of my first charge to the National Social Safety-Nets
Programme (NASSP) on assumption of office in 2019 was the digitization of Cash
Transfer Programme to reduce fiduciary risks, while improving financial
inclusion where feasible for the unbanked people on the National Social
Register, most of whom are women,” Farouq said.
“Our experience during the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced this
position, especially given the requirement of the COVID-19 protocols, as well
as our inability to immediately reach the urban poor impacted by the pandemic.
“It became obvious very early into the pandemic crisis that
we needed to establish a shock responsive system beyond just responding to the
pandemic.
“We needed to develop the capacity for rapid response to any
emergency, whether natural or man-made – such as the crisis of banditry,
insurgencies, communal crisis and the emerging food crisis it sprouts, or the
displacement arising thereof, and not least, future emergencies arising from
climatic changes or similar pandemics.”
Apart from the federal government, the World Bank is
expected to provide funding for the RRR.
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