BAUCHI Field Office of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) says it is targetting the next six months to begin the establishment of Child-friendly communities in Bauchi, Gombe and Plateau States.
This was disclosed by the UNICEF Nigeria Chief of Office, Bauchi, Mr Bhanu Pathak in an interview with Journalists shortly after the opening ceremony of a two-day 2019 mid-year review meeting for Bauchi, Gombe and Plateau States held in Gombe on Tuesday.
He said that, from this year onward, UNICEF will be initiating its Child Friendly Community Initiative (CFCI), a concept where all its programmes on child health services, water supply, sanitation, education, malnutrition, child protection, campaigns against open defecation among others would all be taken to a particular village at the same time.
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According to him, “We want to bring all these necessary programmes into one community and then open that community with our local level activities. We want to make it a child-friendly community where a child gets the necessary services so that he or she becomes a healthy child in the future. This is where we are focusing on; it is a new initiative for UNICEF.”
Earlier, while declaring the meeting open, the Gombe state Governor, Alhaji Mohammed Inuwa Yahaya, who was represented by his Deputy, Dr Manasseh Daniel Jatau, expressed the Gombe State Government’s readiness to work in partnership with an organisation that will bring development to its people.
To show the commitment of Government towards this assurance, he called on UNICEF to bring to the notice of Government any bottleneck experienced while carrying out the project.
He said Government will be eagerly waiting for a report on the outcome of the meeting. It will be recalled that the new administration of Mohammed Inuwa Yahaya had assured development partners of his Government’s readiness to partner with them in bringing development to the State by paying Government’s counterpart funding.