Friday, March 29, 2024

Children’s Day 2020: Examining the Impact of Sustainability Programs on Child Welfare Outcomes

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“The true measure of a society indeed lies in how well it treats its children”. All over the world, conversations are constantly being held around improving child welfare outcomes. For Africa’s most populous nation, Nigeria, this is no different as several institutions at all levels in the country continue to strategize o n ways for improvement. More than ever, this speaks volume about the importance being attached to child welfare. Despite the increase in Nigeria’s economy by 2.55 percent, the poverty level is still said to be as pervasive as ever with children accounting for a large percentage of the deprived due to the lack of resources to meet their basic needs.

According to a 2013 UNICEF report, more than 10 million Nigerian children are classified as out-of-school, 60 percent of which are girls. Another report by the UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS 2014), places Nigeria’s percentage of out-of-school children as noteworthy against the global number of 58 million children of primary school age who were not enrolled in school, despite efforts to achieve universal basic education. Whilst this may seem devastating, it shows that many young children are yet to be afforded the comfort and resources to understand their place in the world.

At the same time, far too many children continue to be victims of poor health & nutrition and substandard education which leaves them without the fundamental skills required to earn their way and advance in a complex society. As cited in a UNICEF Global Study on Child Poverty and Disparities, the national report for Nigeria indicates that, as much as 79 percent of children are deprived in at least one of the seven aspects of deprivation considered. Water deprivation is the most prevalent of child deprivations in Nigeria combined with sanitation, food, education and health. Read more…

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