Lagos govt targets 5,000 beneficiaries for livelihood support programme

The Lagos State Government through the state Ministry of Women Affairs and Poverty Alleviation (WAPA) has targeted over 5,000 vulnerable people to benefit from its Livelihood Support Programme.

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Mrs Toyin Salami, the Head, Disbursement Link Indicator (DL.1.3), WAPA, Lagos State, made this known during a two-day training on Friday in Lagos.

The livelihood support initiative is being implemented under the ‘Nigeria Community Action for Resilience and Economic Stimulus (NCARES) DL.1.3.’

The programme aims at assisting economically active but struggling individuals, vulnerable youths and women in the state with their businesses.

The state’s WAPA is one of the delivery platforms of the Community Action for Resilience and Economic Stimulus of NCARES projects in Lagos.

Salami said all the beneficiaries were sourced from the state’s social register of poor and vulnerable residents.

She explained that over 25,000 names were mined from this register and the criteria is that the beneficiaries must be active in business.

“They will be given soft training that can further boost their businesses.

“A one-off grant payment will also be made to their various bank accounts through a payment service provider to support their business growth.

“We have been in all the local governments in the first and second phases of the programme, so far over 2,500 have benefitted.

“Now, our target is 5,000 beneficiaries; we trained over 1,200 yesterday and hope to move to communities with our field officers and the state register for more beneficiaries,” she said.

Mrs Saudat Salami, Facilitator at Coker Aguda Local Council Development Area, told NAN that the training would equip the beneficiaries, who are majorly micro business owners, on how to succeed with the grants.

Salami said one of the challenges deterring small and medium enterprises from succeeding was lack of entrepreneurship skills.

“Some people are not supposed to open businesses simply because they have skills. To open a business, you need to know how to run a business,” she said.

Earlier, Salami urged the beneficiaries to aim higher by registering their businesses, learning book-keeping and how to market their businesses, particularly using social media.

She further urged them to seek collaborations and join associations that would help them gain access to opportunities that could help grow their businesses.

NAN/Wumi