The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in conjunction with the SOCHEMA and the state ministry of budget, has trained selected enumerators on social protection health insurance beneficiaries scheme from the 23 Local Governments across the state.
The workshop lectures, centred on ‘Capacity Building For Sokoto state Enumerators On Social Protection Health Insurance Beneficiaries Enrollment’ had participants from all the 23 local government of the state as well as friends of the organisations.
Speaking, Isah Ibrahim, who is the social policy specialist of UNICEF in Sokoto State, explained that the programme is a joint one which involves four organisation, including UNICEF, the International labour organisation, World Food Programme.
“The aim is to accelerate SDGs implementation through social protection and in Nigeria it is being implemented at a national level while Sokoto is the pilot state and we intend other states to see and copy from here.
“Sokoto is doing great in terms of social protection but we want to see how we can mainstream the coordination and systems steps are being put in place.
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“We are targeting at least 5,000 beneficiaries. We have some structure to be put in place before getting that 5,000 people.
“We need to identify people by conducting the identification and enrollment process of the beneficiaries.
“So we bring these people to help and identify our target of beneficiaries from each of their community level,” he added
Other speakers include; Dr Almustapha Danjuma, Director Planning and Monitoring Specialist with UNICEF, Dr Amamatu Yusuf, Special Adviser, Sokoto State Contributory Healthcare Management Agency and other speakers said the aim is to enlighten some of their facilitators on how to enrol people from the communities that had been sponsored by UNICEF to fish out the poor among the poorest.
They said the facilitators were drawn from all local governments earlier trained by the team.
Danjuma who spoke on behalf of UNICEF disclosed that after the basic training, three Local government areas which include Bodinga, Silame and Rabah were selected to be the first phase of the exercise.
UNICEF trains local government enumerators in Sokoto
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