Don proffers solutions to end child poverty as UNICEF rolls out intervention in three states
Dr Ali-Madina Dankumo, a lecturer at the Department of Economics and Development Studies, Federal University Kashere in Gombe State has rolled out some measures to be taken by the Nigerian governments and policy makers in order to end child poverty in Nigeria.
Dankumo rolled out the measures while presenting a paper titled “Global Best Approaches to Addressing Child Poverty” during a two-day media dialogue on Addressing Child Poverty, organised by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Bauchi Field Office in Gombe on Wednesday.
According to him, addressing child poverty in Nigeria requires a multifaceted approach that ranged from massive investments in Education, access to healthcare, empowerment of women and girls, child sensitive policies.
Others, he said included nutrition programmes, social protection, community engagement and participation, data collection and monitoring, partnerships and collaboration as well as long term vision and sustainable development, among others.
The university Don, who acknowledged that the Nigerian government had beautiful initiatives, said that lack of monitoring and implementation of programmes, corruption like diversion of public funds are some of the factors mitigating against good policies in Nigeria.
He highlighted some of the good initiatives of the government in addressing child, women and youth poverty to include the conditional cash transfer, free school meals, NPower programmes among others, and called for proper monitoring and implementation of programmes.
Dankumo also added that there is the need to engage children and give them the voice to speak up and express their opinions.
However, speaking during the event, Dr Yusuf Auta the UNICEF Bauchi Field Office’s Social Policy Specialist explained that the UN organization had taken drastic measures towards reducing and eradicating child poverty in three North Eastern states of Bauchi, Adamawa and Gombe.
He explained that UNICEF had supported the development of the Situation Analysis of Children and supported the development of the Social Protection Policies in Adamawa, Bauchi and Gombe States.
According to him, the UN organization had also supported the targeting of the most poor and vulnerable households into the three States’ Social Register.
“UNICEF is also involved in strengthening the capacity of technocrats in implementing pro-poor interventions as well as providing various interventions in Education, Health, WASH, Child Protection, Nutrition and Budgeting,” he said.
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