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Participants listen to the UNICEF resource person during the training for Bauchi Senior civil Servants held in Gombe
By Akanji Alowolodu, Gombe
Children’s issues that are related to education, health, water, nutrition and sanitation will receive adequate attention during the preparation of the 2022 Bauchi State appropriation.
The assurance was given by the Bauchi State Ministry for Budget and Economic Planning during a planning and review meeting held in Gombe towards implementing children related program for 2022 fiscal year.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Yahuza Adamu Haruna, stated this in an interview with Journalists on the sidelines of a two day capacity building meeting held in Emerald Hotel Gombe for senior civil servants in Bauchi State.
The meaning was Organized in conjunction with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), on result based budgeting and the use of Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) formula for effective and efficient social public spending and data collection for 2015 – 2021 budget and expenditure.
UNICEF’s Bauchi Field Office on Social Policy Specialist, Yusuf Auta, told participants at the training/meeting that there was great need for considering children in whatever plans that is done in human endeavor because of their vulnerability and neglected status especially in Bauchi State where the condition of children has continued to dwindle negatively.
Quoting latest NDHS survey for Bauchi State, Yusuf Auta said that 2 out of 3 children aged 0 to 17 years are considered multi-dimensionally poor (69.8 per cent) thus, facing at least three deprivations simultaneously, compared to 53.9 per cent nationally.
He also said that with an estimated population of 4,567,713 children aged 0-17 years, 86.2 per cent of these children do not receive vaccinations while 77.8 per cent of births are unsupervised by quality medical personnel
Another challenge faced by children in Bauchi State is that 147 in 1,000 children die before their 5th birthday, 14.7 per cent of children aged 12 to 17 years do not attain primary school and 62.4 per cent of children between aged 5 and 11 years do not attend school.
But the Permanent Secretary in the Bauchi State’s Ministry for Budget and Economic Planning said the meeting in Gombe with UNICEF is basically to discuss child friendly budget with the aim of addressing the vulnerability of children in the areas of health, water, sanitation, hygiene among many others.
He said that, “we have here a crop of people implementing the budget from these sectors and then educate them on the process we use in even arriving at every sectoral allocation in the budget”.
He also stated that, in education, for instance, “what are those areas we have as our priorities? What can we do to stop out of school children in Bauchi State? What can we do to ensure access to education in Bauchi State? What can we do to ensure quality, raise quality in terms of teaching, learning conditions?
“We mean, students teacher ratio, students classrooms ratio and others. These are variables that determine to a large extent how the child is able to seat down and get it”, he stated.
Yahuza Adamu also pointed out that one of the challenging problems facing the State is that of acute malnutrition in children.
According to him, these visions and areas of priority is what they will work on when they return to Bauchi.
He said, ” What we want to see is that, we are now in the formulation process of budget 2022. We want these people to have have a clear understanding of what our problems and predicaments are, what is our vision? That is, our areas of priority so that when they go back to their various miniseries, departments and agencies, they will translate these visions into actions by putting everything we have into their budgets.
“So, when they come to us, as ministry of budget and planning, we will make sure that those areas are funded and implementation is done”, he emphasized.
