An Abuja-based Civic-tech Non-profit Organisation, PROMAD, has said the practice of making the government annual budget without quality needs assessment to harness citizens’ voices was responsible for the high poverty rate in the country.
PROMAD Founder/Executive Director, Daisi Omokungbe, made known in a press statement, Friday in Abuja, while reacting to the2022 Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) report by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
The NBS report, which was launched on Thursday, indicated that there are 133 million Nigerians were dimensionally poor; a figure that NBS said represented 63 per cent of the country’s population.
According to NBS, “Over half of the population who are multidimensionally poor cook with dung, wood or charcoal, rather than clean energy. High deprivations are also apparent in sanitation, time to healthcare, food insecurity, and housing.
“Multidimensional poverty is higher in rural areas, where 72 per cent of people are poor, compared to 42 per cent of people in urban areas. “Approximately 70 per cent of Nigeria’s population lives in rural areas, yet these areas are home to 80 per cent of poor people; the intensity of rural poverty is also higher: 42 per cent in rural areas compared to 37 per cent in urban areas,” NBS had said in the report.
Reacting further the organisation’s founder said, “The apparent lack of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), healthcare, food security and housing, amongst others are all pieces of evidence that the government budgets, both at the national and sub-national, over the years have not been meeting the needs of the masses at the grassroots and urban cities.
“This report should worry all the true lovers of Nigeria and the masses if we are to achieve true growth and development.”
He added that it was more worrisome that the country’s poverty index has even surpassed the World Bank’s projection of 91.5 million for the year 2022.
Omokungbe further stated that though the federal and some state governments have made improvements by adopting Open Government Partnerships(OGP) for budget framework and fiscal accountability, efforts must be made to build frameworks that incorporate needs assessment surveys before making annual budgets.
He said the organisation was already building a civic-tech solution through its Grassroots Advocacy Project (GRAP), which would drive the documentation of community and citizens’ needs, to ensure the needs of the Nigerian masses dictate budgetary allocations in critical sectors.
He maintained that the country would fight poverty and make better policy decisions based on the evidence of the needs of the common men and women in tandem with government strategic directions for Nigeria.
“We can’t successfully fight poverty and hunger in Nigeria without needs assessment. We are willing to partner with government’s Ministries, Departments and Agencies(MDAs) as well as donor-oriented organisations to get the priorities of communities into the budget annually,” he said.