By Abbas Bamalli
The United Nations Children’s Funds (UNICEF), has begun a three-day capacity building workshop for Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) from Katsina, Jigawa and Kano States.
The workshop, taking place in Dutse, Jigawa, is aimed at influencing child financing and effective Social Protection (SP) implementation.
Presenting a paper titled: “Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA)”, Hajiya Fatimah Musa, a UNICEF specialist on social policy, Kano Field office, deliberated on critical roles of CSOs in achieving the set goals.
She said the CSOs as implementing partners, should conduct themselves appropriately when dealing with beneficiaries of Social Protection (SP) interventions.
The social policy specialist said the aims and objectives of the workshop was to reinforce the participants’ capacity on advocacy and social accountability.
“The exercise is to strengthen the CSOs’ capacity on how to engage with policy makers and key stakeholders for improved child sensitive budgeting across social sectors.
“And also to raise their awareness on the importance and benefits of social accountability to citizens and government at all levels,” she said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the workshop was organised by the Katsina and Kano Ministries of Budget and Economic Planning, with the support of UNICEF.
SP is a set of policies and programmes aimed at preventing or protecting all people against poverty, vulnerability and social exclusion throughout their life cycles.
NAN recalls that recently, the UNICEF supported the review and validation of the policy document for Katsina, which was later signed and approved by Gov. Dikko Radda.
The Katsina ministry of budget and economic planning in collaboration with other stakeholders, commenced a process of drafting the Bill, towards enacting SP law in the state.
In Kano, the SP Bill was drafted , but still before the state executive for onward transition to the state assembly, while that of Jigawa is also on the pipeline.
NAN