Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto state has advised federal government to intensify effort towards meeting it’s obligation on the Sustainable Development Goals program to achieve the desired objective in the country.
The Governor gave the advice while receiving the outgoing United Nations Children’s Fund UNICEF Nigeria representative, Mr Peter Hawkins and his team, in his office.
According to him, the Federal Government is slowing down on the implementation of the SDGs, stressing that the state government has not received any support or counterpart funding from the Federal Government on the SDGs.
He said despite the COVID-19 pandemic, shortfalls in revenue generation and the worrisome rate of inflation, Sokoto state government is still meeting all its obligations with the UNICEF and other donor agencies in the State.
Governor Tambuwal said lack of commitment in the settlement of counterpart funding by some partners in the country had shortchanged the quest for ensuring girl-child education, healthcare development, malnutrition and enrollment of out of school children in the country.
He expressed appreciation to the UNICEF for its support, especially in complementing government’s efforts towards repositioning the Almajiri system in the State.
In his speech, the outgoing UNICEF country representative, Mr Hawkins, while congratulating the Tambuwal administration for domesticating the Child Rights Act, made strong cases for social protection of children, especially those in the Almajiri system, the Spotlight initiative, upgrading of the primary healthcare system, SDGs and other issues like malnutrition.
He added that the UNICEF is working towards alleviating cases of two hundred thousand people this year noting that it can be doubled with the commitment of development partners in a bit to ensuring sustaining the program in the country.
NASIR MALALI