Kogi State Project Coordinator of Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE), Dr. Bello Abdulhakeem, has commended the State Coordinating and Operation Unit (SOCU), an offshoot of the state Youth Employment and Social Support Operation (YESSO) for a thorough job done with the Single Register (SR).
Dr. Bello gave the commendation during a courtesy visit with his team to the office of the SOCU Coordinator in Lokoja.
The AGILE PC stressed that the Single Register which was done by YESSO has now become a veritable launch pad for effective and result-oriented empowerment programs with a robust database of poor, unemployed, and vulnerable persons in the state.
He introduced AGILE as a Federal Government World Bank-sponsored project geared to improve secondary education opportunities among girls in targeted areas in participating states.
Dr. Bello disclosed that the AGILE project proposes to use a comprehensive approach to address critical binding constraints adolescent girls face that limit their ability to complete secondary school, by using the school, family, and community platforms to empower adolescent girls.
This approach, he said, will consist of interventions aimed at keeping girls in schools and providing opportunities for them to acquire critical life skills thus empowering them to enroll, stay, and complete schooling.
Part of the ways of empowering adolescent girls through their parents is via the Conditional Cash Transfer which is targeted those in the transiting class of Primary 6 to Jss 1 and Jss 3 to SSS 1.
Dr. Bello further stressed that all this requires accurate data, carefully and transparently done by agencies with high reputations like that of YESSO – SOCU.
He however seeks partnerships as implementing partners to enable the AGILE project to succeed in the state.
In his response, the State Coordinator of SOCU, Dr. Noah Alilu welcomed the AGILE team to his office while lauding the initiative.
According to him, the reward for their hard work is when they see bodies coming to access their database to reach out to the poor, as poverty he said was real at the grassroots.
He assured that their database which has now become a national reference base will be made available when needed with caution and on how to go about using those information.
Dr. Noah, who extolled the robust nature of the Single Register (SR) built by his office, said the World Bank and the Federal Government are very proud of Kogi SR so much that they have showcased it as a template to a delegation from the Democratic Republic of Congo to understudy the process of building the Register for her social investment program.
Dr. Noah noted that several poor households within the state benefited from the Conditional Cash Transfer program of the previous government of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration as a direct result of their socioeconomic conditions as captured in the Register while adding that several youths across the state benefited from the Public Warfare Component of YESSO and youths enrolled into the Skill for Job Development (S4J) of the project.
Dr. Noah assured AGILE of his office’s cooperation and support in ensuring that the objectives of AGILE are achieved in the state.
Signed:
Bishop Aturu
Communication Officer, Kogi AGILE
