The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund has berated the federal government of Nigeria for its apathy towards providing basic support for millions of vulnerable children in the country.
The Fund stated that given the lax on the part of the government to live up to its billing, that more public-private partnerships would have to be forged in Nigeria in order to bridge the gap for children in underserved communities.
Speaking on Thursday at the inaugural meeting of the International Business Group in Lagos, Chief Field Officer , UNICEF, Celine Lafoucriere said that, a key part of the Fund’s project in Nigeria was aimed at achieving the Sustainable Development Goals through the provision of better opportunities for vulnerable children in deprived and impoverished communities.
She said that in furtherance to achieving the goal, UNICEF was already collaborating with some corporate organisations in the provision of crucial interventions in the areas of access to mobile data, workplace readiness skills and livelihood opportunities to Nigerian youths, as well as support for young Nigerians to express their opinions and needs.
“The general objective was that we are going to contribute to increasing access to data in underserved areas for Nigerian youths. We have a target of expanding data coverage to 250 underserved communities. Today we are at 400,” she said.
On supporting access, delivery of workplace readiness skills and livelihood opportunities to Nigerian youths, she said progress on these fronts had been stalled due to certain technicalities involving its partnership with YOMA, an initiative developed by young Africans as a holistic approach to addressing skills development and employment challenges, as well as increase in youth agency across the globe.
On funding the project, she had this to say: “There is no given budget from UNICEF to do this, yet we have been driving as fast as we can. There is also no given budget because it should come from the partners. Budget is not an issue per se, because this is a public-private partnership platform. It’s a question of coordinating the funds and aligning with the government as to where they want things to happen.”
She reiterated the Fund’s plan through its YOMA foundation to continue to help in the affected communities.