The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in partnership with the European Union (EU) and the Oyo State Government, has announced plans to expand Oyo’s social register by enrolling an additional 250,000 vulnerable households between 2025 and 2026.
The initiative, part of the Supporting Sustainable Social Protection Systems in Nigeria (SUSI) project, was revealed during a consultative stakeholders’ meeting held in Ibadan on Thursday.
Speaking at the event, UNICEF Social Policy Manager at the Lagos Field Office, Mohammed Okorie, said the expansion aims to strengthen the state’s capacity to identify and assist individuals and families experiencing various forms of deprivation beyond monetary poverty.
“Today’s meeting is crucial because it focuses on identifying the poor and vulnerable, meeting them where they are, and ensuring they are included in the social register through which they can be reached with support,” Okorie said.
“We want to move beyond seeing poverty as only a lack of money. The new social register will identify households where children are out of school, where there is malnutrition, or where people face other forms of deprivation.”
He explained that the project, which is being implemented in four states Oyo, Abia, Benue, and Sokoto, will rely on multidimensional poverty indicators such as access to education, healthcare, nutrition, and housing.
UNICEF is providing technical assistance to the Oyo State Government and the National Social Safety Nets Coordinating Office (NASSCO), while the EU is funding the initiative.
“Our target between 2025 and 2026 is to add an additional 250,000 households to Oyo’s social register,” Okorie said. “The project is designed to promote dignity and inclusive access to social protection for all residents.”
The Coordinator of the State Operations Coordinating Unit (SOCU), Ismaila Salami, revealed that Oyo currently has 363,038 households, representing 1,032,627 individuals, captured in the register — a figure significantly lower than states like Zamfara, Kano, and Katsina, which each have over two million individuals registered.
“We are starting with ten local government areas as a pilot phase for the multidimensional poverty expansion,” Salami said. “After this, we will conduct advocacy and sensitisation to ensure all ministries and agencies align with the process.”
He added that the updated register would serve as a reliable database for targeting beneficiaries of government and development partners’ social intervention programmes.
Declaring the meeting open, the Oyo State Commissioner for Economic, Budget and Planning, Prof. Musibau Babatunde, reaffirmed the government’s readiness to conduct a household survey and poverty mapping exercise to identify areas with the highest poverty indices.
“This will assist us in planning and making evidence-based decisions,” Babatunde said. “The essence of this survey is to disaggregate various indicators to the local government level for effective development planning.”
The meeting was attended by representatives of key ministries, departments, and agencies, as well as members of the State Technical Working Group on Social Policy, who pledged their commitment to supporting the project’s implementation.
The expanded social register is expected to enhance data-driven poverty reduction and ensure that more Nigerians benefit from social protection interventions by 2027.
