Nigeria to adopt Brazilian model for poverty reduction through MDGs Programmes

The South American country is reputed to have recorded huge success in the area of poverty reduction through the use of the world’s acclaimed ‘Bolsa Familia Conditional Cash Transfer, CCT and other complimentary social protection programmes. Brazil was also able to meet the MDGs goal one of halving the number of poor people and eliminating hunger within five years of the millennium goals declaration.

Mrs Gbeneol reiterated that the lessons learnt from the study tour would help the MDGs office in strengthening the social safety interventions to the pro-poor in the country as the office moves to fast-track implementation efforts ahead of 2015. Speaking further, she said that her office OSSAP-MDGs is leading the deployment of structured social protection schemes to sub-national governments.

According Dr Gbeneol, Nigeria operates a CCT scheme similar to that of Brazil in that it is modelled to help attain achievement of Health and Education MDGs indicators. However the SSAP noted that with the new experience, the office is poised to work with key stakeholders in proffering better solutions to current implementation challenges faced by the Nigerian CCT while also strengthening it to help in poverty reduction.

Source