Only states that show readiness, commitment and willing to pay the 10 per cent counterpart funding of the ongoing 400million dollars World Bank Youth Employment and Social Support Operations [YESSO] programme of the Federal government are qualified to access the grant, Acting National Coordinator for YESSO, Hajara Umar Sammi has said.

The Seven year programme which started in 2013 and has 15 states benefiting aims to increase access of the poor and vulnerable using improved safety net systems for youth employment opportunities in all participating states and to provide targeted grant transfers to the poor, vulnerable and internally displaced people (IDPs) in the North Eastern States of Nigeria,

In her remarks at YESSO’s second quarter performance report in Abuja, Sammi said, “It is gratifying to note that the holistic data already collated by YESSO on the very poor in the society as well as for the IDPs is now being used by the Federal and States government in selecting and getting beneficiaries for National Cash Transfers because of its credibility.

“The YESSO objective is basically to increase access to poor people from their households, poor individuals to employment strengthening social safety nets system and to provide targeted grant transfer to IDPs.”

Sammi added: “We have a coordinating unit that is in charge of strengthening the social safety net system, ensuring that there is a community development or target based mechanism used to identify where these communities are mobilized, in these various components we ensure that different categories of participants ranging from skill acquisition to doing menial jobs among others are paid stipends not less than 7,500 naira monthly through their various bank accounts’’.
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