By Damilola Isaiah, Akure
Findings has revealed that only nine percent of households in Ondo State benefited from any form of social protection programme in the past year, exposing deep gaps in awareness, coordination, and inclusion across the state’s welfare system.
The finding emerged during the Ondo State Dialogue on Social Protection organised under the Act Naija project, which took place in Akure, the state capital on Thursday.
The project under the New Initiatives for Social Development (NISD), and in partnership with Ondo State Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget seeks to strengthen social protection systems across Nigeria through citizen engagement, evidence-based advocacy, and improved accountability.
Presenting the baseline assessment, the NISD Ondo State Project Officer, Mrs Adedoyin Adebisi Patrick, said that the low coverage calls for urgent reforms to ensure equity, transparency, and wider inclusion, particularly for vulnerable groups such as women, youths, and persons with disabilities (PWDs).
According to her, the Act Naija project is currently being implemented in seven states which are Borno, Delta, Ekiti, Enugu, Kogi, Ondo, Osun, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), with a focus on strengthening policy coordination and citizen participation in social welfare programmes.
Mrs Patrick revealed that Ondo State baseline assessment found that only nine percent of surveyed households had benefited from programmes such as Conditional Cash Transfers, school feeding, education grants, and health insurance in the last 12 months. She stressed that about 80 percent of the interventions came from government agencies, while non-governmental organisations accounted for the remaining 20 percent.
The report further highlighted gender and disability challenges, showing that 64 percent of persons with disabilities were unaware of any social protection programme, and 75 percent had never benefited from one.
It added that there was no dedicated structure to track inclusion outcomes, and gender-responsive budgeting was largely absent.
While acknowledging that Ondo State has a Social Protection Law enacted in 2016, the assessment observed that weak coordination, irregular disbursements, and poor monitoring continue to limit the effectiveness of interventions. Programmes such as the Abiye initiative and GEEP were also found to suffer from poor implementation and limited reach.
Also speaking, the NISD Project Manager, Steve Stado, stressed that social inclusion is not a charity but a fundamental human right of every individual especially the vulnerable people.
Stado emphasized that the essence of social protection lies in ensuring that vulnerable citizens have access to the support they need to live with dignity.
