Save the Children: Nigeria must increase investment in child’s rights to achieve SDGs by 2030

Save the Children, a child-centred international non-governmental organisation (NGO), says Nigeria must increase investment in child’s rights to achieve the sustainable development goals (SDGs) by 2030.

Speaking at a media briefing in Abuja, Ebrima Saidy, chief impact officer of the organisation, said many Nigerian schools do not have good infrastructure and also lack competent teachers.

Saidy said the health sector is also lagging behind, adding that over 50 percent of children are still unvaccinated against diphtheria.

“With the indicators around quality of education, we may not be able to achieve that by the year 2030 and that’s not just in Nigeria, but also in many countries around the world,” NAN quoted Saidy as saying.

“This is because of the quality of instruction, the resourcing of schools, the resourcing of teachers, the enabling environment for teachers to provide good quality education, and the infrastructure that is required. We are still way behind on a number of these.

“We are committed to the SDGs.We know from the data where we are doing well and where we are not doing well.

“I think the right thing to do is to identify the areas that we are not doing very well and increase government investment in those areas, and coordinate the work of NGOs and the work of the development partners.”

He said the government needs to formulate suitable policies to promote children’s rights, adding that they deserve to be protected.

“It is not too late for us. We are still optimistic that we may not achieve all but we can still push the boundaries as best as possible, but we have to partner to work better together,” he added.

“We have to complement each other. We all bring different expertise and different roles and responsibilities; it is about including the children and the communities that we work in.

“We need to work better with the government. We need to work better with donors and our development partners.

“We want to be able to raise more funding to be able to increase the amount of states that we work in, but also the depth of our work in some of the states that are very, very deprived.

“Since Nigeria already has one of the lowest vaccination rates in the world as only 42 per cent of children under 15 in Nigeria are fully protected from diphtheria.

“SCI, therefore, calls for a launching of a wide-scale health response with mass vaccination campaigns across the worst hit areas.

“It is also appealing to donors to support the comprehensive response being launched by the government and humanitarian actors to support local health services to combat diphtheria.”