NESG, UNICEF Partner For SDG Achievement
The Nigeria Economic Summit Group (NESG) and United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) have begun a partnership and signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that is focused towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) that focus on education, health and other child rights issues in Nigeria.
Representatives of the organizations in their respective submissions explained that the partnership was targeted at securing the posterity of Nigeria by providing quality health and empowerment opportunities for the children that would run the affairs of the country in years to come.
UNICEF Country Representative, Ms. Cristian Munduate, who spoke at signing of the MoU in Abuja, on Thursday, said that UNICEF is committed to any cause that would guarantee and improve the quality of life and wellbeing of Nigerian children, hence it’s open for partnership with organizations and individuals that are committed to similar course.
She made reference to recent data that indicated that children in Nigeria suffer various forms of deprivations both monetary and non-monetary, adding that about 47.7 per cent of children face monetary poverty by virtue of belonging to household living with less than N137, 400 per year (about 375.6 naira a day).
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“Furthermore, the multidimensional child poverty analysis approach revealed that approximately 54 per cent of children in Nigeria are multidimensionally poor because they face at least three deprivations across seven dimensions of child rights including nutrition, healthcare, education, water, sanitation, adequate housing, and information.
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“Evidently, multidimensional poverty in children is more prevalent in the rural (65.7 %) than urban areas (28.4 %). There are also high state disparities in Nigeria that, if not addressed, can persist from one generation to the next, thus creating an inter-generational cycle of poverty.”
Chief Executive Officer of NESG, Mr. Laoye Jaiyeola, in his remarks, said the Group intend to highlight some of the identified challenges working against the interest and wellbeing of Nigerian children so the country can have a healthy and productive population that would, in future, be able to compete favourably in global arena.
He said: “We can go on to make investments in all kinds of infrastructures, notably, roads, rails, bridges and several others. But if we fail to invest in the human beings that would manage the infrastructures, then we have failed.”
He, thus, solicited the support of all stakeholders including the media to propagate the messages of human capital development, particularly the female children. “The recent data has said it all. It’s a call for more collaborative work to salvage the posterity of Nigeria. It’s doable and we would do with the help and support of all.
“At NESG, we are non-profit, non-partisan, private sector led think tank with a mandate to promote and champion the reform of the Nigerian economy into an open, globally competitive economy.”
