United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says it will continue strengthening collaboration with the Katsina State government to achieve Open Defecation Free (ODF) status by 2025.
The UNICEF Chief of the Kano Field Office, Mr. Rahama Mohammed, stated this during the 2024 end-of-year review meeting and 2025-2027 Work Plan Consultation Workshop held in Katsina on Thursday.
Mohammed said that the health benefits of being an ODF were enormous “and that collaborative efforts would be sustained to ensure that Katsina joins Jigawa to become an ODF in two years.
“More than 46 million Nigerians are reported to defecate openly, with Jigawa being the first state to be designated as ODF by the National Task Group on Sanitation (NTGS) in 2022.
“Same year, the Clean Nigeria Campaign (CNC) showed that, of the 34 Local Government Areas in Katsina State, only 24 had been declared ODF, with 10 other councils yet to achieve this status”.
Mohammed also lamented that stunted growth among children in the state was rising despite a significant decrease in neighbouring Kano and Jigawa states.
Therefore, he stressed the need for stakeholders to investigate and address the issue.
According to him, the review meeting and consultation aimed to assess how far collaboration between UNICEF and the state government had gone in tackling problems affecting children in the state.
The officer noted that the workshop would enable UNICEF and the government to think creatively about ways to partner successfully in the future and address issues bordering five thematic areas. He identified the thematic areas as out-of-school Children, Stunted Growth among Children, Water, Elimination of Polio, and Open Defecation.
NAN
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