UNICEF Nigeria’s social policy manager, Mohammed Okorie, has described the National Social Register as a vital tool to tackle poverty and improve education outcomes.

Mr Okorie made the remark at a one-day stakeholder engagement held on Monday in Lagos with the theme, ‘Advancing Social Protection through the National Social Register’. The event was organised by the National Social Safety-Nets Coordinating Office.

Mr Okorie said that effective collaboration among governments, development partners, and policymakers would be crucial to achieving targeted interventions, using credible community-driven data.

“NSR is a database of poor and vulnerable Nigerians built through three phases of community identification, proximity testing, and verification, which ensures inclusion of those truly affected.

“The register eliminates assumptions in policy-making by providing accurate details about households, members, locations and levels of deprivation, thereby enabling targeted interventions that directly address the needs of beneficiaries.

“There is need for deliberate government effort, through policy frameworks, mandating states to establish functional systems that regularly update the register to capture changing dynamics of poverty and vulnerability nationwide,” he said.

Mr Okorie urged ministries, agencies, departments, and development partners to adopt the register in all poverty reduction efforts, ensuring transparency, accountability, and equal opportunity for beneficiaries, regardless of their political or social affiliations.

He commended the Lagos government for the measures in place to drive the cause. Mr Okorie said that ministries such as that of women’s affairs relied on the NSR to implement empowerment schemes, removing bias and strengthening trust in social protection programmes.

According to him, NSR is  credible and globally recognised. He expressed satisfaction that the register had  integrated multi-dimensional poverty indicators.

Mr Okorie urged civil society organisations, private sector institutions, philanthropists, and health agencies to collaborate in sustaining the NSR and utilising its data to target out-of-school children, unemployed youths, and low-income households for interventions.

Education minister Tunji Alausa reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to working with stakeholders to strengthen NSR, which he  described as a vital tool for advancing education and human capital development.

He said that NSR should not be treated as a static database but as a ‘living’ tool for planning, accountability, and targeted investment.

Mr Alausa gave the assurance that the ministry would continue to collaborate with other ministries, departments, agencies, and development partners to ensure that the gains of NSR  would translate into measurable improvements in education outcomes across Nigeria.

The minister urged governments and development partners to provide the necessary support for strengthening the register as part of broader efforts to build a more resilient national social protection architecture.

The permanent secretary at the Lagos State Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget, Olayinka Ojo, stated that Lagos had a strong partnership with UNICEF and had recorded achievements rooted in reliable and high-quality data, which guided policies and investments in social welfare.

(NAN)