By Suzan Edeh, Bauchi
Some Selected Youths in Bauchi State under the auspices of U-Reporters have been urged to advocate for child Responsive budgeting in order to address child poverty.
The Charge was given by Yusuf Auta, a Social Policy Specialist with the UNICEF Bauchi Field Office at a one day training of U-Reporters on Child-Sensitive budgeting, held at the Hazibal Hotel and Suites in Bauchi.
He said that training amongst other things was to empower the U-Reporters to engage Policy makers and key stakeholders through advocacy on the need to allocate reasonable resources for children in the process of budgeting in Bauchi.
According to him, a budget is considered child friendly if among others, it contains policy measures, from both the revenue and expenditure sides, that contributes to the survival, protection and development of children, leading to improved well-being and well-becoming.
He noted that child budgeting creates a supportive framework for the efficient and transparent flow of resources that reach children on time whilst minimizing transactional cost and avoiding leakages, stressing that there is a need for sufficient political commitment relating to pro-child law, social and tax-related policies and adequate and equitable budgetary allocation.
On his part, a resource Person from the Bauchi State Ministry of Budget Economic Planning and Multilateral Coordination, Abubakar Sadeeq Usman stressed on the importance of young people’s voices in ensuring equitable budget processes, especially in allocating more resources to child-focused sectors, assured them that the ministry’s door remains opened to receiving complaints and inputs to develop a widely accepted and implementable budget.
He said some of the challenges of Child-Focused Sector Budget include competing priorities and low Internally Generated Revenue (IGR), weak budget extension, lack of disaggregated data on child needs, political interference, Low capacity in MDAs amongst others.
Abubakar recommended that there is a need for government to increase domestic allocation to Nutrition and social protection as well as institutionalize Child Budget Tagging and Performance Monitoring.
Speaking earlier in an opening remarks, the Communications Officer of the UNICEF Bauchi Field Office, Opeyemi Olaguju, said that the objective of training was to build the capacity of young people to understand how the budget is create and advocate for child friendly budgeting, adding that UNICEF is engaging with government at all levels to allocate more resources to child development.
.