Mr Dan Mou is the Secretary of the National Poverty Eradication Programme. He speaks with Victoria OJEME on developments in the new NAPEP.

WHAT is the relationship between NAPEP and KORAN?

NAPEP is a Federal government agency. It means  National Poverty Eradication Programme. It was set up by the Federal government in 1981 with the aim of eradicating poverty and this is accomplished through the process of mobilising the poor to participate in the main stream of the economy as well as monitoring, evaluation and pro-poor team eradication efforts in the country.

We are also involved in intervention in some key areas of the programme such as COP, Care of the People, that give money to families with school age children who cannot afford to send these children to school.  We have started a social welfare scheme whereby we are giving up to five thousand every month to enable them send the children to scho ol and to enable the children also have assess to medical facilities. So these are also some of the intervention programmes we engage in.

KORAN is just an association, keke Owners Riders Association in Nigeria. It is an association that came up as a result of NAPEP programme.  You know, NAPEP introduced the tri-cycle version in Nigeria.  When it was introduced,  a lot of people were interested in it so they formed an association,  registered it with government.  It is a mega association that have branches in all the State capitals, some times even in the major cities in Nigeria.

So they have a whole net work of distributors of these Keke NAPEP.  So this is basically an association,  you can say it is an NGO of sort.  It is an NGO,  while NAPEP is a Federal government agency within the presidency .

What are specific indices of how NAPEP is contributing to the attainment of MDGs?

The number one goal of the MDG  is eradication of poverty. Within the next 15 years poverty would have been halved in Nigeria.  We at NAPEP believe very strongly that by that year, severe poverty would not only be halved, but would have gone down much lower.

Now there are programmes we have put in place, we are collaborating with the MDGs.  Part of the funds we  use for the execution of our programmes also come from the MDGs funds.

Dr. Dan Mou: "Nigeria for the first time now has a Social Welfare Programme."

There are a number of specific programme we have designed under the MDGs’ frame work to help us reduce these extreme poverty, one of which is Care of the People (COP.

COP is a conditional cash transfer programme whereby NAPEP gives money to the severe poor people.  The situation of the poor is not  homogenous.  We have the active poor, who if you give them resources they will be able to carry on.

There are co-poor that are so poor that they can not do any thing on their own,  but these ones also have families and have children of school age , so what we have done since 2007 under  COP,  Nigeria for the first time started a social welfare programme,  a kind of social security system whereby you give  free money to people hence it is called conditional money transfer.

It is conditional because there are certain basic things that must be in place. One, for now we are giving to only families that have school age children and the condition is that these primary school age children must be in school, rather than hawking on the streets.

Two, they must be attending medical facilities where they get some usual vaccinations and; three to ensure the nutritional improvement for the whole family so they now have a monthly allowance.

When we started the programme,  if you have one or two children you were given N 2,500.   if you have three to four, you receive N3,500 and when it is four children or more N5,000. This money is given free of charge provided they meet these conditions. So this one, as you know is targeting the poor ones.

Then we have the usual micro credit, where monies are made available to our states offices, people apply.  We have a system in the state, called Joint Implementation Committee, under the JIC, a representative of the governor, usually a Commissioner chairs then our state Coordinator is the deputy chairman.

So that committee accesses the applications from  people. The applications are sent to us at the headquarters.  Those  approved are sent back to those states and the states make allocation for loans. We don’t keep money.  When we collect allocation from the Federal government or from MDGs’ office we just divide it by 36 states and FCT and send it there.

However, to ensure that it is utilised very well and there is prudence and transparency,  we don’t allow them to give it out until you bring the names of people and how you arrived at that through your GMC, then we give an approval here to them to  work on. So this is what we call general micro- credit.

We also lauched a new programme because we discover that givin this Akara level credit, giving people five thousand naira to start Akara, ten thousand to start it can’t really help people.

It may get individuals out of poverty, giving them food on the table. It can put food them on the table,  but you cannot get communities out of poverty. You know in the past, efforts  on poverty eradication in Nigeria have been centred on individuals and we realise that is not working very well.

The few individuals get better, but the community where they are coming from are not benefiting. So we have been more creative. We came up with what we call the, Village Economic Developments Solutions, VEDS. Under these village economic development solutions, we give what we now call micro- credit.

But now, it is not just micro credit, we also give what is known as macro- credit. You know micro credit by Central Bank definition is any credit that is five hundred thousand naira or less. So when you hear of micro credit, we are talking officially about credit that is not more than fifty thousand naira down to one thousand naira.

But macro credit is any thing from the five hundred thousand naira to fifty million naira. So you realised that under the macro credit arrangement, we have two sets of programmes; we have what we call anchor activities and we have what we call the widening activities.

By the target of this scheme, it is no longer for individuals. The target of this scheme, since we started it, is for cooperative societies. Even though now we have loosened it a bit, even private individuals now qualify to get the macro domestic credit.

Under the macro credit arrangement, cooperative societies or private individuals get a loan; a bigger loan this time can be twenty million naira. Like I told you, micro credit is five hundred thousand naira but not more than fifty million, so it is a bigger bracket. Now because meso grow out from the wage medium, simply means medium credits are impose to micro credit.

You know, under this arrangement for instance, if you want to start up a Garri processing plant whether by cooperatives, then the cooperative will apply. When we access the facilities and know that they are capable of doing it, the money will be given to the cooperative or individuals for that matter.

Now they will now go and start up the Garri processing factory. That Garri factory in the community we refer to it as anchor activity.

But notice that we know that processing Garri you need cassava. There are some raw materials you will request, so we don’t just give money to Garri processors on loan, we give part of that money or credit to people who are producing the cassava. So, you realised that in this particular community we are given loan to anchor project hence it is called an anchor project which is the Garri processing.

We also give loan to farmers who cultivate cassava there, which we call the widening activities. So as they produce their cassava, they have a ready market now for the cassava via the processing activities. It is compulsory that they must stay there,  but rather not having market.

So you can now sell it right there. So what is happening now is that because there is a ready market and because of the activities of these plants, people will be employed in that factory.

People are coming to sell their products to the factory. The finish products are being marketed by other people. So you can see that the whole community is involved.  If you do that work two, three years, you will see that poverty will be eradicated in that community because the value chain that will be created will push people out of poverty in that community.  So that is the number three item we use to achieve MDG goals.

Remember I told you we have village solutions. Then we also have what we called Village Trust Fund.  Under the Village Trust Fund, we have what we called anchor personalities.

Individuals in the various communities, such as you for instance, may decide and come to NAPEP and say you have three million; you want NAPEP to partner with you to start something in your village to help eradicate poverty.

So we can also partner with you and set up a trust fund there from which money now can be use either to send people to school or to start another processing activity for the community. So that is what we call the Village Trust Fund.