3,300 Oyo households to benefit from OY-CARES social transfer program

The Social Transfer component of the Oyo State COVID-19 Action Recovery and Economic Stimulus (OY-CARES) is targeted to benefit no fewer than 3300 poor and vulnerable households in Oyo during the 3rd phase of its implementation through the State Cash Transfer Unit.

This was disclosed by the State Coordinator, Cash Transfer Unit, Mr. Akintunde Gbadamosi, during a day  Orientation Training for the third batch of Social Transfer facilitators of OY-CARES across the 33 LGAs in the State held recently at Plaza- De Haruna, Hotel, Oyo town. 

According to him, the beneficiaries were drawn from all the 33LGAs in the State from the data mined from the State Operation Coordinating Unit (SOCU).

Gbadamosi said a cash transfer of N10,000 per month to the beneficiaries in the 3rd phase of the program would commence after the ongoing training of the facilitators.

The data from SOCU covers some categories of disadvantaged and vulnerable individuals ranging from aged, chronically ill, physically challenged, urban poor and widows.

The State Coordinator explained further that the OY-CARES program is an emergency operation from the Federal Government domesticated by the State Government which is designed to support budgeted programs of expenditures and interventions at the State level.

He added that the program targets existing and new vulnerable and poor households, in the agricultural value chain, Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs), affected by the economic crisis informed by the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The sum of #10,000 per month is awarded to be given for a year to the Social Transfer component beneficiaries to aid their consumption and reduce stress. The transfer, which is card-based will be paid #20,000 bi-monthly”, he said.

It would be recalled that in 2019/2020, a global pandemic called COVID-19 ravaged the universe, with a large proportion of citizens, especially the poor and vulnerable households/ individuals facing challenges on multiple fronts such as losses of labor, income, food, insecurity, etc.

Mr. Gbadamosi stated further that the OY-CARES program is designed to run for a period of two years (2022- 2024) and is being implemented using existing structures at the level of the State and Federal Governments, without creating any add-on project implementation structures.

He stressed further that Oyo State Government in the first phase had 1,755 beneficiaries from 18 LGAs and 1755 beneficiaries from 15 LGAs in the second phase and now 3300 for the third phase from all the 33 LGAs on the delivery platform of Cash Transfer handling Social Transfer (ST).

Facilitators are trained on how to organize and deliver sensitization, data validation, and enrolment activities of Social Transfer at local government and community levels, ensure supervision and monitoring at the LGA level, and then collect, discuss, and possibly resolve reported grievances from communities over the ST process from community grievance persons in the community among others.