2022 Appropriation: Bauchi promises child-friendly budget
2022 Appropriation: Bauchi promises child-friendly budget
2022 Appropriation: Bauchi promises child-friendly budget
Story from Matthew ELOYI
The Bauchi State Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning has said that it will ensure that children’s issues in education, health, water, nutrition, and sanitation receive adequate attention during the preparation of the 2022 State appropriation.
Permanent Secretary in the Ministry, Yahuza Adamu Haruna, disclosed this in an interview on the sidelines of a two-day capacity building meeting held in Emerald Hotel Gombe for senior civil servants in Bauchi State.
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Organized in conjunction with the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), the meeting will be on result-based budgeting and the use of Medium Term Expenditure Framework and Fiscal Strategy Paper (MTEF/FSP) formula for effective and efficient social public spending and data collection for 2015 – 2021 budget and expenditure.
Mr. Yusuf Auta, UNICEF’s Bauchi Field Office’s Social Policy Specialist, had told participants at the meeting that there was a great need for considering children in whatever plans that is done in human endeavor because of their vulnerability and neglected status especially in Bauchi State where the condition of children has continued to dwindle negatively.
Quoting the latest NDHS survey for Bauchi State, Mr. Auta said 2 out of 3 children aged 0 to 17 years are considered multi-dimensionally poor (69.8 percent) thus, facing at least three deprivations simultaneously, compared to 53.9 percent nationally.
He said, with an estimated population of 4,567,713 children aged 0-17 years, 86.2 percent of these children do not receive vaccinations while 77.8 percent of births are unsupervised by quality medical personnel.
According to him, another challenge faced by children in Bauchi State is that 147 in 1,000 children die before their 5th birthday, 14.7 percent of children aged 12 to 17 years do not attain primary school and 62.4 percent of children between aged 5 and 11 years do not attend school.
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But the Permanent Secretary in the Bauchi State’s Ministry for Budget and Economic Planning said the meeting in Gombe with UNICEF is basically to discuss a child-friendly budget with the aim of addressing the vulnerability of children in the areas of health, water, sanitation, hygiene among many others.
According to him, these visions and areas of priority are what they will work on when they return to Bauchi.
