240,000 Ekiti People to benefit from National Safety Nets’ Rapid Response Register (RRR) Scheme

By Shehu Akingbolu

About 240,000 Ekiti people will be captured under the Rapid Response
Register (RRR) Scheme of the National Safety Nets Coordinating Office
(NASSCO) in Ekiti State.

The State Commissioner for Budget, Hon. Femi Ajayi who made this known
in Ado Ekiti, said that the beneficiaries who would be chosen from 235
communities in 40 wards across the 16 Local Government Areas in the
State, would receive some form of social assistance from the Federal
Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs to cushion economic shocks they have
been exposed to because of the pandemic.

Hon. Ajayi described the RRR scheme as a “shock response framework
designed to scale up the existing National Social Safety Nets Project
(NASSP) through a partnership between the Federal Ministry of
Humanitarian Affairs and the World Bank.

He stated that the register would serve as database to provide
emergency social assistance to mostly urban and semi-urban households
made vulnerable by the economic shocks of the Covid-19 pandemic and
possible future challenging emergencies.

According to him, the scheme would rely on satellite remote sensing
technology, Machine Learning Algorithms and Big Data analysis to
target households, adding that targeting households would be thorough
to the extent of determining the resources available.

Ajayi advised people in the State to continue to support efforts of
Government to improve their lot.

In his remarks, the Acting Coordinator of NASSCO in the State, Mr.
Abiodun Ariyo said that the RRR scheme was in furtherance to the
vision of President Mohammadu Buhari’s vision to move 100million
Nigerians out of poverty.

Mr. Ariyo stressed the need for people picked to benefit from the
scheme to register and take advantage of Government’s gesture to
improve their wellbeing.