Kano studies Lagos blueprint for social protection, development planning

The Kano State Social Protection Agency has turned to Lagos to study how the state coordinates social protection, manages community-level data and incorporates residents’ needs into development planning.

A delegation from the agency, led by its Director-General, Fatima Abubakar-Abdullahi, held a two-day engagement with the Lagos State Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget last week, a statement obtained by The PUNCH on Tuesday showed.

The visit centred on Lagos’ institutional framework for social protection, development planning, grassroots data management and citizen participation in government programmes.

The Kano team met officials of the Lagos social protection unit, led by its Director, Semiu Yusuf, at the ministry’s headquarters in Alausa, Ikeja.

The Permanent Secretary, Lagos Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget, Olayinka Ojo, said the state created a dedicated Social Protection Coordinating Department after recognising the need to bring interventions under a more coordinated structure.

She said the department now operates with dedicated personnel and administrative functions covering accounting, procurement, media and social work.

Ojo said Lagos also relies on more detailed community-level data to determine where development interventions are needed.

“It helps us to plan for the state in a disaggregated manner, so that we leave no one behind,” she said.

The Permanent Secretary said the approach enables the government to move beyond broad administrative classifications and identify differences in the needs of communities.

She also identified the Lagos Development Plan as the framework through which the state sets its development priorities and breaks them into short-, medium- and long-term targets.

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“We are very audacious about our plan,” Ojo said.

She said the planning framework was focused on economic growth, infrastructure and human capital development.

She, however, stressed that government alone could not deliver sustainable development without building the capacity of civil servants, private-sector actors, civil society groups and community stakeholders.

Another component of the Lagos system examined by the Kano delegation was public participation in budget preparation.

Ojo said the state had recently completed consultations with communities ahead of the 2027 budget, with residents identifying priorities that would be taken into discussions with accounting officers and heads of agencies.

She said Community Development Committees and other organised community structures were central to the process, providing channels for government to gather residents’ concerns, update social protection registers and obtain feedback on government interventions.

A member of the Kano delegation, Abubakar-Abdullahi, said the state was seeking practical lessons because its social protection agency, established only last year, was still developing its institutional and operational systems.

“We came to Lagos to learn, to understand how you put your things in place, because Lagos is Nigeria,” she said.

She commended the Lagos team for sharing its experience, saying the lessons would help Kano develop structures for coordinating social protection programmes and improving service delivery.

The Kano delegation included the agency’s Director of Planning, Dalhatu Danladi, and Director of Public Enlightenment, Rabiu Ibrahim.