Stakeholders Task FG, State Govs on Policies to Tackle Child Poverty
From Umar Dankano, Yola
Stakeholders have appealed to Federal and state governments to enhance initiatives aimed at helping low-income families including those with children.
State actors and journalists made the appeal at a two day capacity building workshop held in Gombe state Wednesday stressing that the feat is with a view to addressing child poverty constraints.
In his welcome remarks,Opeyemi Olagunju, Communication officer, UNICEF Field office Bauchi applauded the commitment of the journalists on contributing in changing the narrative of every situation at hand urging them to promote good policies towards mitigating the negative trends for the emancipation of our societies.
Olagunju said journalists as major catalysts in mediation need to beam their professional torchlights on highlighting crucial issues affecting the future leaders especially the children noting that, Nigerian children constitutes about half of the nation’s population.
He added that Unicef as a development partner has been supporting policies of government s with direct impact on the populace assuring that more intervention have already underlined by the organization for implemention across the globe calling on policy makers to do the needful in addressing child poverty due to its sensitive nature towards national development.
Collaborating the plea, Social policy specialist,UNICEF Bauchi Field Office, BFO. Dr.Yusuf Auta advised journalists to champion the lot of Nigerian children who are groomed for leadership role in the future.
Auta stated that, available research have revealed that children are either facing monetary poverty or multi-dimensional poverty which makes it difficult for them to compete with their peers who do not experience such deprivations.
He maintained that,it has been established that, corruption, unemployment, violence and insurgency, inadequate investment in social sector, insufficient money from social security benefits are some of the factors behind the preponderance of child poverty.
He noted that child poverty comes in two forms, monetary poverty and multi-dimensional poverty which borders around lack of economic capacity and deprivations in more than three areas identified as core needs of the child.
According to him the areas are water, sanitation, housing, health, education, nutrition, information and child protection adding that any child who suffered deprivations in three or more of these areas is considered to be suffering from multi-dimensional poverty.
In their separate goodwill messages, the Commissioner of Budget and planning of Gombe State, Hon. Salihu Baba Alkali and the permanent secretary, Adamawa State Planning Commission, Amos Enock Piribus applauded the timely interventions by UNICEF in different sectors in their states.
They also explained that their state governments are poised in according fair opportunities to brighten the future of all children assuring that no child should be deliberately left behind.
Our Correspondent reported that, Eight (8) state actors with over forty (40) journalists of print and electronic media from Adamawa, Gombe and Bauchi states attended the two days training.
