By Philip Yatai
Kaduna – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is supporting Kaduna State Government to undertake Situation Analysis on Children (SitAn) in the state.
The support would provide an analytical approach for government to understand the situation of children and women in the state for proper interventions.
Mr Yusuf Auta, Deputy Director, Development Aid Coordination, Planning and Budget Commission, made this known at a one-day workshop in Kaduna on Thursday.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop was organised for SitAn Thematic Group to look at human rights based casual analysis, as well as role and capacity gap analysis.
Auta said that SitAn would also provide an analysis on gender and equity issues that continued to hinder the realisation of positive outcomes of interventions for children and women.
He said the analysis would identify the capacity gaps of all responsible parties at all levels in addressing children issues.
According to Auta, the Situation Analysis for Children State Steering Committee was inaugurated on Nov. 14 to support the situation analysis.
He also said that four thematic groups were formed, namely: child survival, education and development, child protection and poverty and socio-economic vulnerability.
The deputy director said that the groups were expected to collect data needed for a robust report on the situation of children in the state.
Auta explained that the meeting was organised for each thematic group to present available data on children and what had been done so far.
He said the meeting was also organised for the groups to identify causes, role and capacity gaps for realisation of child rights and to develop a draft report of causal analysis.
According to him, people suffer from many complex factors beyond their control, particularly women and children, such as malnutrition, violence, gender inequality, out-of-school children, displacement and many more.
“The rights of children and women in Kaduna state have been receiving reasonable attention, but more still needs to be done to holistically address children’s right issues.
“For example, Kaduna state had passed the Child Welfare Law and developed the Gender and Social Inclusion policy to address challenges faced by children and women respectively.
“But despite these actions, there is no single set of data that presents the situation of children in the state.
“The situation analysis would, therefore, establish what has been achieved and what needs to be done specifically for children.
Also speaking, UNICEF’s Social Policy Specialist Ramatu Aliyu said that Kaduna state was among the six states that UNICEF was supporting to carry out the situation analysis.
Aliyu said the analysis would bridge the gap and guide prioritisation of interventions for children by government and non-governmental actors.
She said that the goal was to help remove all gridlocks in the realisation of child’s rights in the state.
“The SitAn will help us understand the causes and linkages among problems affecting the realisation or non-realisation of child rights.
“It investigates the unequal realisation of rights across different dimensions and fosters an understanding of the drivers of these inequities.
“It will also help us to understand how the state’s human, social, economic and organisational resources and structures, including laws, policies and institutions can contribute to solving these problems.
“This will support advocacy, design and implementation of child sensitive policies and programmes and provide room for the prioritisation of issues concerning children,“ she said. (NAN)