The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has appealed to governments at all levels in Nigeria to increase budgetary allocation for children-focused interventions.
Malam Yusuf Auta, a social policy specialist from UNICEF Bauchi field office comprising three states of Bauchi, Gombe and Adamawa made the plea during a media dialogue on addressing child poverty held in Gombe.
He stated that children are the majority population in most states of the federation, hence their needs should be prioritised.
Malam Auta explained that child poverty is when a child lacks access to basic consumption needs such as nutrition, shelter, education, healthcare and proper sanitation.
He recalled that 2022 population estimation indicated that Adamawa State has 4.9 million, Bauchi has 8.3 million while Gombe State has a population of 3.9 million people.
The policy specialist disclosed that the population of children between 0-17 years in Adamawa is 2.4 million, Bauchi is 4.7 million while Gombe State has 2.1 million people.
“You can now see that children are the bedrock of any sustainable society, but if this segment of the population is deprived of their rights to education, water, sanitation, nutrition, health and protection, it would have a negative impact on the development of the nation,” he stated.
He lamented that the 2022 Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) showed that 73 million children in Nigeria were multi-dimensionally poor in 2016/2017.
“Sixty-million children representing 60.6 percent were multi-dimensionally poor in 2021 just as 47.7 percent of children in Nigeria experienced monetary poverty, that is, those who live in households surviving on N376.5 per day in 2019.”
He also stated that from the report, the extreme poverty rate increased in 2023 with an estimated 84 million Nigerians living below $1.9 per day, the world’s largest poorest population after India.
Also speaking on the effects of child poverty on socio-economic development, a lecturer with the Department of Economics and Development Studies, Federal University, Kashere, Dr Ali Dankumo stated that child poverty contributes so much to social unrest.
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