The Kaduna State Government on Wednesday reaffirmed its readiness to provide adequate finances and other logistic support for the promotion of girl-child education in the state.
Mrs. Phoebe Yayi, Director, Development Aid Coordination and Planning, Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning, who gave the assurance in Kaduna, expressed optimism that educating the girl-child would check maternal deaths.
Yayi spoke at the opening of the United Nations Fund for Population Activities(UNFPA) mid-year review meeting and Financial Management Orientation.
She said that the state would continue to provide the needed support to ensure that parents enrolled and retained their wards in schools, and expressed the state’s readiness to partner with the Fund to enhance skill development among youths.
According to her, the development of skills will fast tract economic growth and boost self-reliance.
She said that the Kaduna government would continue to invest in its youths, especially the girls, stressing that poverty and teenage pregnancies would be eradicated if the youths were educated.
Yayi commended UNFPA’s partnership with the states in the Northern region that had facilitated awareness among parents on the need to enroll and retain adolescent girls in schools beyond the primary level.
She said that the state government had paid N120 million as counterpart fund for family planning and child spacing programmes of UNFPA, and lauded UNPFA for providing N480 million to sensitize parents and women on the use of contraceptives for child spacing.
Yayi recalled that the state government, in 2016, appropriated N100 million for the same programme with the agency providing N400 million.
Earlier, Mrs. Mariana Darboe, UNFPA programme manager, had said that the meeting was convened to review the progress so far made in the area of implementation, between January to June, 2017.
Darboe said that the review would assist the agency to identify key challenges, best practices as well as the success stories that could be replicated to improve service delivery in the second half of the year.
According to her, the review will also improve knowledge of participants on UNFPA programme and financial management.
She said that the agency’s education and skill acquisition programmes were key to eradicating poverty and underage marriage among girls.
“`We are investing in adolescent girls to enable them build healthier homes, reduce maternal deaths and maximise opportunities toward enhanced economic growth and development,” she said.
Officials from Kaduna, Sokoto, Kebbi and Gombe States are participating in the three- day review programme.
(NAN)