AN INTEGRATED APPROACH TO SOCIAL PROTECTION SYSTEM IN KANO STATE, NIGERIA: A SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT LINKAGE

Abstract

The social protection system is an important agenda, not only for the well-being of the people but for the social, economic and political development of Kano State in particular and Nigeria in general. The paper focuses attention on the social protection initiatives of the Kano State government meant to provide a minimum standard of living for everyone and to reduce multidimensional poverty and inequality. In addition, they prevent shocks that are due to risks such as unemployment, destitution, sickness, illiteracy, and disability, which can push people into social exclusion and insufficiency. Four hypotheses and four research questions were formulated to guide the study. A total of 278 respondents was utilized for the study and stratified random sampling was used to select the respondents. In addition to that, five respondents were engaged in the interview and purposive sampling was used to select the interviewers. The instruments applied in the study are self-designed questionnaire tagged the Social Protection System Questionnaire (SPSQ) and the interview protocol. The questionnaire has a reliability coefficient of 0.82. The t-test at 0.05 level of significance was used in testing the null hypotheses. While thematic analyses were used for the interview. The findings of the study show that there is no significant difference between gender on the perception of the social protection system of the Kano State government. Also, there is no significant difference between poor and vulnerable people of the state on the acceptability of the social protection system. And there is no significant difference between the most vulnerable and deprived women and children on the effects of the social protection system. But the result revealed that there is a significant relationship between the social protection programmes of Kano State government and poverty. Based on the findings of the study the challenges, as well as the future prospects of the social protection programmes of Kano State government, were highlighted in order to attain sustainable development.