TheCable

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) says it has commenced a five-year strategic plan to help in closing development and gender gaps faced by Nigerian children.

Geoffrey Njoku, UNICEF communication specialist, said this on Thursday at a programme on child’s rights curriculum in Enugu.

NAN reports that the five-year strategic plan commenced in January and will run until 2027.

Njoku said the plan will support children in Nigeria to achieve the same development as kids in other countries around the world.

He said Nigeria has the highest number of out-of-school children with about 10.1 million primary school-age children who are not enrolled in schools.

He raised concern over the neglect and assault experienced by Nigerian children, particularly those who are engaged in acts of terrorism.

“What we want to change is persistent and entrenched gender inequalities that cause girls to experience worse outcomes than boys,” he said.

“Insufficient government investment that leads to basic social services being financed by out-of-pocket expenditure, excluding millions of the poorest and most vulnerable.

“Limitations in state and local government human resource capacity responsible for service delivery.

“The organisation, however, intends to achieve the plan using the four major components of child survival (Health, Polio, Nutrition, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and HIV/AIDS), basic education, child protection and social policy and gender equality.”

The UNICEF communication specialist said Nigeria is lagging in the area of gender equality as it ranked 139 out of 150 countries in the Gender Index Gap.

He added that the programme will help in changing the narrative in Nigeria.