Otti Hails EU, UNICEF, ILO’s Plans To Alleviate Poverty In Abia

Abia State Governor Dr Alex Otti has commended the European Union with it’s development partners UNICEF and the International Labour Organization ILO for considering Abia as one of the state selected for partnership to reduce poverty rate in the country.

The governor stated that his administration is working tirelessly to reduce poverty in the state, far below its present 30 per cent rate, in the next one year, despite growing population.

Otti stated that though it may not be possible to eliminate poverty, the government was working to alleviate it by creating the enabling environment for businesses to grow, generate employment and generally improve the quality of lives of its citizens.

Otti who addressed a delegation of the European Union with its development partners who visited him on Tuesday, however, said the government would require a reliable database to be able to plan and measure progress in its quest to address the poverty issue.

“We may not be able to eliminate poverty, but we can alleviate it when we create an enabling environment for businesses to grow and generate employment and pull people out of unemployment.

“So, we want to genuinely take people out of poverty, and we want to generate a reliable number. We want to see the number and see the poverty rates go down even if the population is going high. Once you have a reliable database, it becomes easy to plan and for you to measure. “

The governor restated that everything his administration had done in the last eight months in office was geared towards genuinely bringing Abians out of poverty.

“I want to see that in the next one year with an increase in population, the poverty level will be reducing not just the rate.

“We have struggled with the social register. I am happy you are talking about social register and social protection. There is nothing as important as data, because without data you cannot plan.

“So, we’ll do everything possible to ensure that you do your work and generate reliable data for the purpose other than social protection.

“I think the world is looking at multidimensional poverty, like you said, which means we are not just interested in poverty as a stand-alone item, but poverty that looks at wealth, access to education and infrastructure. I think those three are multidimensional poverty that you’re looking at,” Governor Otti said.

In her remarks, the Commissioner for women Affairs and poverty alleviation Mrs Blessing Felix said that Abia as of today cannot boast of a reliable social register, adding that the intervention of the team will help the state to come up with an accurate and reliable social support register that has eluded the state for many decades.

Speaking during the visit, the leader of the team and Programme Manager for Social Protection, European Union, Miss Chioma Osuji, told the Governor that they were in Abia to partner the state in strengthening its social protection system by coming up with a reliable social register that would serve as a guide in providing the necessary support to addressing the multidimensional poverty rate in the state.

She regretted that many poor Nigerians were yet to be captured on the social register to determine the actual number in need of their services, adding that the whole process will now be digitised to tackle the multidimensional poverty rate in Nigeria.