Health
KANO State Government with support from the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is working to provide child-friendly services at ward levels to ensure the survival, growth, and development of children.
Mr Shamsuddeen Saleh, Planning and Monitoring Specialist, UNICEF Kano Field Office, made this known in Kaduna on Tuesday, at a Planning Workshop to develop a strategy for the implementation of a Child-Friendly Functional Ward programme.
Saleh said that the programme aimed to meet the development needs of children by improving access to sustainable and quality social services, creating demand for services and promoting active community participation and ownership.
According to him, the goal is to ensure that basic child survival and development needs are made across all wards in the state.
“This will be achieved through improved provision of essential services as well as demand creation for the community members to fully participate and own the programme.
“We want to also ensure that every child gets all the basic services and care needed to survive and grow healthy, intelligent and strong.”
Saleh identified the intervention areas to include health, education, child protection, nutrition, and social protection.
He said that the programme would ensure a minimum package of interventions in every ward, by providing the basic things that children need to survive, develop, and thrive.
“In health sector for example, we want to ensure that every child in a ward is immunised and mothers attend antenatal care to deliver a healthy child.
“For education, the minimum package is for every child to be in school and learning.
“All we want to see is a ward that is child friendly and fully functional in all the key basic things; good health care services, good school with children learning and protection from violence.
“We also want to ensure adequate access to nutrition services by monitoring children’s nutrition status and giving them all the help they need.”
He commended the Kano state government for leading the process, adding that one ward would be identified to pilot the programme.
Saleh said that if successful, the programme would be scaled up to all wards in a local government area and move to another LGA until all the state was covered.
He said that the objective of the planning workshop was to discuss with relevant policymakers on the concept of the child-friendly functional ward and its goals.
“We want to also share an understanding of what we need to do, define the result that we want to achieve in the communities, and design strategies and activities.
“We will equally develop a framework on how to achieve the goals and draw an implementation roadmap,” he said.
Also speaking, Malam Balarabe Hassan, Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Planning and Budget, stressed that the government was committed to providing all basic services required for child survival and development.
Musa said that the situation of children in the highly populated state was disturbing, but added that UNICEF has made improvement in recent times.
“Kano State has a functional Nutrition Policy and a Multi-Sectoral Plan of Action of Nutrition at the moment.
“We equally have a Social Protection Policy developed with the support of Action Against Hunger.
“With these policies in place, I am confident we will see significant changes in the provision of critical services needed to ensure child survival, growth and development in Kano State,” he said. (NAN)
– Oct. 6, 2020 @ 17:32 GMT |
Tags: Kano State partners UNICEF to implement child friendly functional ward programme
