THE United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has called upon the government to ensure that planning should be based on existing resources.
UNICEF further said that one of the major challenges of implementation is the inability to set the priorities right, as there are too many shopping lists that affect productivity.
While speaking at a five-day workshop organised by UNICEF in partnership with the Lagos State government on a Results-Based Management Workshop in Ibadan, Muhammad Okorie, Social Policy Specialist/Officer-in-Charge (OIC), UNICEF Lagos Field Office, explained that in keeping with the five principles of Aid Effectiveness of Ownership, Alignment, Harmonisation, Results and Mutual Accountability, UNICEF had ensured that it plans together with government, implements together and monitor for results.
“It is against this backdrop that UNICEF always holds a joint planning meeting with her government counterparts to ensure that the government development agenda form the fulcrum of the programmes while supporting with international best practices. This process has gained traction with the government as there is an improved sense of ownership on the side of both parties.
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“The United Nations Development Group defines results-based management as “a management strategy by which all actors, contributing directly or indirectly to achieving a set of results, ensure that their processes, products and services contribute to the achievement of desired results (outputs, outcomes and higher level goals or impact). The actors, in turn, use the information and evidence on actual results to inform decision-making on the design, resourcing and delivery of programmes and activities as well as for accountability and reporting.”
Mr Okorie included that “It is expected that this training which has come at the right time when the state is engaging in its 2019 planning, will result in the state providing sufficient budget for children that are efficient, effectively and equitably disbursed and implemented in a transparent manner that will enable children in Lagos State Children to: Survive and thrive; learn; be protected; live in clean and safe environment; have equitable chance in life.”
Also speaking, Director, Planning, Lagos State Ministry of Planning and Budget, Mr Seun Akinsanya, explained that the partnership with UNICEF on result based management is to have a focused and planning mechanism in place and “so far, it has been practical, trying to derive the objective of the workshop of the fundamentals of life.
“Lagos doesn’t have problems with implementation; we have been planning robustly and implementation has followed, the level of development in Lagos is as a result of planning and implementation, quite a number of other states come from faraway places to see how it is been done,” he said.
One of the participants at the workshop, Manager, Mirabel Centre, LASUTH, Juliet Olumuyiwa-Rufai, enthused that “this is an opportunity for us to plan for people living in Lagos State and to ensure nobody is being left behind so that there will be better welfare and greater Lagos.
“Challenges can be enormous. People can plan without needful assessment and that is why this training is important to identify those to be planned for and provide specific needs and it is also an opportunity to hold the government accountable in their planning.”
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