98,000 pregnant women got N392m in 6 years – UKAID

The UK Department for International Development through the Child Development Grant Programme (CDGP) has supported about 98,000 pregnant and lactating women in Jigawa and Zamfara states with N4, 000 monthly stipends in the last six years.

The CDGP implemented from 2013-2019 by Save the Children and Action Against Hunger (SCAAH) provided monthly unconditional cash transfers to pregnant and lactating women from pregnancy until the child is two years.

Country Manager, Oxford Policy Management, Femi Adegoke during the dissemination of the end line findings of the ODGP recently in Abuja stated that the aim of the project was to reach children in their first 1,000 days being the most significant part of a child’s life.

He stated that studies have shown that of the 700million world’s poverty population, 385million children are living in poverty and the bulk of them are in sub-Saharan Africa.

He said the pilot project executed in six communities in the two states have helped reduce stunting  in the benefiting communities adding that cash transfers had positive impact on household food security, dietary and household expenditure.

Programme Manager of CDGP, Ramatu Buadah-Aliyu put the project cost to about N11billion which was given out in cash transfers. She said the aim was to address the problem of stunting and malnutrition in children as Nigeria has one of the highest rate of malnourished children, mostly in the northern part of the country.

She said, “We wanted to use cash and knowledge to address the problem of stunting in the country and at the end of the programme we noticed that there has been so much improvement in livelihood activities among women in the communities.”

Representative of the Department for International Development (DFID), Alexis Stevens in his remark stated the need for social protection to unlock human capital challenge saying there is still more to be done to reach about 87million Nigerians leaving below poverty line.

Leave a Reply