From Mika’il Tsoho, Dutse
The United Nation’s Children Education Fund UNICEF called on 27 local government Chairmen in Jigawa state to save lives of 89.4 percent children whom experience monetary poverty as 85.6% are multi-dimensionally poor in the state.
The call was made By Mr. Rahama Rihood Mohammed Farah, Chief UNICEF Field Office in Kano who was represented by Micheal Banda during the launch and dissemination of Jigawa General Household Survey held on Tuesday at banquet hall government house Dutse.
Mr Farah, congratulated the governor and people of the state on the conclusion of the Jigawa General Household Survey disaggregated with estimates across the 27 Local Government Areas.
He said , the impressive initiative reflects Jigawa State Government’s unwavering commitment to advancing the welfare of children and improving outcomes for the most vulnerable groups in state’s communities using data to inform decisions.
According to him, UNICEF Kano Field Office is proud of the strong partnership we share with the Jigawa State Government across multiple sectors, including Health, Education, Nutrition, WASH, Child Protection, and Social Protection.
“Together, we have achieved significant milestones, such as strengthening systems for measuring child poverty through the recent General Household Survey (GHS), developing key policies and action plans, and building the capacity of the government stakeholders.
“It is a sobering reality that 89.4% of children in the Jigawa state experience monetary poverty, while 85.6% are multidimensionally poor, facing deprivations in at least three critical areas, including Health, Education, Nutrition, Water Sanitation, Shelter, Access to Information, and Child Protection. These figures highlight the urgent need for collaborative action to reduce child poverty and improve the well-being of Jigawa’s children”, he said.
Mr Farah stressed that, Local Government Chairmen have a pivotal role to play in shaping the discourse and actions needed specially to address child poverty in Jigawa using evidence generated for multisectoral planning.
He said , the challenges can be address by strengthen collective efforts and putting in place measures that will ensure Utilization of Local Government data to inform planning and decision-making as well as Designing and implementation of structured social protection interventions targeting poor and vulnerable children.
Other measures are approval of the elaborated social protection policy, passage of the revised social protection bill into law, increased budgetary allocations for child-specific programming across social sectors using the available data particularly in Health, Education and Social Protection and Scaling up birth registration for children under five, with a target to increase the current rate by at least 30%.