The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, has announced plans to prioritize local communities in 2025, aiming to dismantle barriers that hinder children’s rights.
The UNICEF Chief of Kano field office, Mr Rahma Rihood Mohammed Farah disclosed this at the 2024 end of year review meeting and 2025-2027 work plan consultation held at Manpower Development Institute MDI, Dutse, Jigawa State.
Farah, who was represented by officer in charge of Kano field office, Mr. Michael Obanda said the aim of the meeting is to review what was done and take care of some changes in the environment for programming.
According to him, “We want to ensure that we take care of the changes in the environment for programming between when we started in 2002 and now.
“This is because a lot of things happened, i.e, local Governments now have autonomy of managing resources, which means we are going to position ourselves strategically more on the local community level by identifying priorities and bottlenecks that hindered the realisation of children’s rights.”
He explained that UNICEF will continue to focus more in the areas of its intervention, including ensuring open defecation free (ODF) communities, decreasing out of school children, improving learning outcomes, zero dose Immunization, birth registration and reducing child and maternal death.
Obanda urged for the stakeholders’ commitment and collaboration to achieve the desired objectives.
UNICEF however expressed satisfaction with Jigawa State Government ‘s commitment for not only attending to priorities, but putting resources on the table where it matters more, especially for the children.
