The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF has pledged it’s commitment to continue to work with Government and other stakeholders to provide essential needs to improve the lives and future of disadvantaged children
Officer-in-Charge, UNICEF Maiduguri Field Office, Dr Tushar Rane stated this in an interview with newsmen as part of activities commemorating 2023 World Children’s day.
The World Children’s Day is celebrated on Nov 20 annually.
Below is the excerpts from his interview highlighting some of UNICEF’s engagements in Nigeria especially in the northern part of the country
Would you say children in Nigeria have been impacted positively from the annual commemorations?
Definitely. The joys, promise and impact of children on our world deserve to be recognized and celebrated every day. I cannot imagine what the world, nations and communities would be like without children. Their innocence, resilience and contributions to our world are priceless. The future is bleak without children and that is why their wellbeing is top priority for the United Nations and of course UNICEF.
Our work focuses on Children which to us is more than our mandate. Setting a day aside to recognize and affirm their universal rights is indeed the right thing to do. Engagement with policy makers and opinion leaders on the wellbeing of children has helped to put the issues affecting them, in different context, on the front burner. Expanded partnerships, policy changes on child protection, infrastructural improvement, capacitated caregivers are some of the outcomes of past Children’s Day commemoration.
The number of out-of-school children in Nigeria is alarming and girls are particularly behind in terms of education. What is UNICEF doing to change the situation?
The fact is that no society can move forward if its girl children remain behind. Majority of the development challenges we have in the world today would be over if more girls are enrolled and encouraged to stay in school and complete their education. Let us Think of education access as a cycle; it is incomplete if girls are not able to finish their education. In northeast Nigeria, the trend is that more girls are being enrolled in school; but majority of them drop out after their junior secondary education. Poverty is the biggest challenge to keeping girls in school because they easily drop out of school to support household income generation efforts.
Majority of the 1.9m children who are out of school in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states are girls. UNICEF has been working with the state governments in the northeast region to provide vocational skills for vulnerable families and adolescents. In the last three years, more than 1 million women, youth and adolescents have been supported with various skills including shoe and soap production, tailoring, catering, paint production and hairdressing. This was made possible through the support of our donors, including the European Union, German Development Bank, (KfW), and the Norwegian Government. UNICEF is focused on addressing structural and systemic issues that drive girls out of school. With thanks to our partners who have made this possible, we have constructed classrooms and gender-sensitive toilets in more than 200 schools across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states in the last two years.
The chances of school enrolment and completion become diminished when classrooms are dilapidated and not conducive for teaching and learning. School completion for girls and boys will remain a mirage where teachers and school furniture are inadequate. The new classrooms constructed with support from the Global Partnership for Education and German Development Bank are helping to facilitate access to safe and effective learning environment in northeast Nigeria. This year, more than 8,500 schoolgirls have been trained in the production of reusable sanitary pads for better menstrual health management with the support of the German Development Bank (BMZ) and the Netherland Government through collaboration with the Directorate-General for International Cooperation (DGIS). The outcome is that more girls will be encouraged to stay in school and complete their education.
Are northeast states doing well in the areas of immunization and cholera prevention?
Health is wealth, as we all know. Access to antenatal, immunization and malnutrition treatment services is important if we hope to enroll healthy children in school. There are about 100 local government areas in Nigeria with the highest burden of zero dose children. Majority of these local governments are in the north and Borno and Yobe states have 10 per cent. That is high. There are also nine LGAs in Borno State with the highest number of Pentavalent vaccines dropout rate.
The biggest challenge is access to the hard-to-reach locations where these children are. UNICEF initiated a “Flying Midwives’’ scheme in collaboration with the Borno State Government to reach children and women in some of these locations with health and immunization services. The scheme addresses the paucity of health care workers who had to relocate from their original communities because of insecurity. The scheme ensured that health workers are available in these locations to provide essential services for pregnant women, lactating mothers, newborns and other categories of children. State government is taking full ownership of the scheme which is crucial to sustainability of the services. Now the state government has deployed about 1,500 health workers to primary health centres across Borno State. The Flying Midwives scheme bridged this gap prior to the deployment of the health workers and is now focused on on-the-job capacity building, monitoring and mentoring.
What is UNICEF doing to mitigate the challenges been faced by displaced children in northeast Nigeria?
UNICEF has been supporting the Government to meet the basic needs of internally displaced children because they are the most vulnerable group. Through our Rapid Response Mechanism (RRM) programme, we are addressing immediate needs of clean water, non-food items and malnutrition prevention and treatment services. We have dispatched hygiene promoters to these locations to ensure that key messages on personal, food and environmental hygiene reach caregivers. It is unacceptable that 56 per cent of displaced children in northeast Nigeria do not attend school. Again, with the benevolence of our donors, UNICEF is supporting religious education centres with volunteer teachers who are providing literacy and numeracy classes for children in IDP camps and communities in Borno and Yobe states.
As the world commemorates Children’s Day today, is UNICEF giving Government a pass mark on child protection?
At UNICEF, we are focused on continuous engagement with the Government, community and opinion leaders, caregivers to give children the support and opportunity they deserve. The improvement room is the biggest in the world. We all can do better than we are doing right now. At least 2,000 children die every day in Nigeria and our actions and inactions contribute to that. UNICEF will continue to work with Government and other stakeholders to provide essential education, health and nutrition and protection services to improve the lives and future of disadvantaged children.
