By Bashir Bello

KANO—THE United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF, has called on Kano State government to urgently pass the Child Protection Bill into law to address bottleneck issues affecting children’s rights and development in the state.

Chief of UNICEF Field Office, Kano, Mr. Rahama Farah, made the call while launching the Situation Analysis (SitAn) of children in Kano State report compiled by the state government through the Ministry of Planning and Budget, with support from the agency.

Farah also called for scale up of social protection programmes in the state, such as cash transfer programmes, moving towards child grant to accelerate poverty reduction and human development and to address some of the financial barriers to children accessing basic social services, such as health, and education.

He said: “Children are the leaders of tomorrow; therefore, any nation, state or society that wants to be great must ensure it provides an enabling environment for its children to survive, develop, thrive and realize their full potentials. This is particularly important in an increasingly globalized and competitive world.

“To help children unleash their full potentials, those who have the power to make decision on resource allocation must ensure that not just the required resources are invested in a timely manner, but that such investment is based on objective sound analysis on what development challenges are actually affecting children – and women – that need to be addressed.

“The situation analysis report is an excellent tool to guide the Government and development partners towards the prioritization of development interventions for children in the Kano State, which should help to remove the bottlenecks that stand against the realization of children’s rights in the state.

“Similarly, the Situation analysis report has identified strategic entry points in the state development process that will reduce disparities, address children’s vulnerabilities, and contribute to shaping the national development agenda, while accelerating the achievement of national and international sustainable development goals for children in Kano State.

“It is gratifying to note that the findings of the study have given full illumination on what development imperatives need to be addressed strategically to improve human development outcomes for the children of Kano State “Permit me to highlight a few of these: There is a high level of child poverty in the state that mirrors the country’s overall high poverty rate of over 70 per cent.

Children continue to be deprived due to unemployment or low income[1]earning levels of their parents and caregivers coupled with limited social services, especially those in hard-to-reach locations. The deprivations are multi[1]dimensional in nature, affecting all seven elements of children’s well-being, namely, nutrition, health, water, sanitation, housing, education and information.

“Having identified the issues affecting children in Kano State, the next step and the challenge before us is how to implement the recommendations of this Report and how to resolve these challenges.

“It is on this premise that UNICEF hereby calls on the Government of Kano State on the need to pass the Child Protection bill into Law. We also call on the State Government to progressively scale up social protection programmes in the state, such as cash transfer programmes, moving towards child grant to accelerate poverty reduction and human development and to address some of the financial barriers to children accessing basic social services such as health, and education.

“UNICEF calls on the Kano State Government to improve and sustain the government fiscal and monetary policies geared towards wealth creation, human development, and reducing inequality, the rate of unemployment and poverty.”

Earlier, the Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Planning and Budget, Auwal Sanda, said the report was a rich document designed to aid state and non[1]state actors’ intervention towards improving the lives of children and women in the state.