No fewer than 600, 000 persons have received various forms of empowerment under the Community and Social Development Project (CSDP) in Enugu State, CSDP Operations Manager, Mr Dons Eze, has said.

Eze disclosed this on Friday in Enugu at a two-day training programme organised for members of the Community Programme Management Committee (CPMC) of the scheme.

He also said that more than 150 communities, evenly selected across the state, had one project or the other executed by the CSDP.

He said that the nine years of the project implementation in the state had been a tremendous success.

“CSDP has blazed the trail in the delivery of social and infrastructural services, particularly in the areas of rural electrification, water supply, health, school and road rehabilitation as well as construction of culverts and bridges, market stalls and civic centres.

“These projects cut across the three senatorial zones and 17 local government areas of the state, with over 150 communities benefiting.

“The project has equally positively affected the lives of over 600,000 people in the state,” he said.

Eze said that the project, which was anchored on community-driven development, had significantly reduced poverty in rural communities across the state.

Earlier, the General Manager of CSDP, Mr Maximus Asogwa, said that the project was aimed at increasing the access of the citizens, particularly the less privileged members of the society, to improved social and natural infrastructure.

Asogwa urged the participants to judiciously use the funds given to their respective communities because the supervisors of the project had zero tolerance for corruption.

He stressed that members of the CPMC would be strictly monitored so as to ensure that they discharged their duties efficiently, in line with the laid-down rules.

In his remarks, the Commissioner for Rural Development, Mr Gab Onuzulike, pledged that all the projects that were initiated by CSDP would be given priority attention.

Onuzulike said that the state government was committed to the transformation of the rural areas, in line with its four-point agenda aimed at alleviating the suffering of the residents of rural communities.

He said the state government was pleased with the successes so far achieved by the management of CSDP in the state.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the CSDP is a World Bank intervention project, which is executed in collaboration with the federal and state governments, with the aim of reducing poverty in communities.

NAN also reports that more than 200 persons, who were drawn from six local government areas of the state, participated in the training programme. (NAN)

– Nov. 9, 2018 @ 16:39 GMT |