Nana Oye lauds UNICEF for commitment to welfare of children
The Minister for Gender, Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur, has applauded the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) for ‘remaining committed to improving the welfare and well-being of children around the world’.
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Speaking on behalf of the African Group of States, Nana Oye noted the decline in under-five deaths, percentage of underweight children, new HIV infections, number of out-of-school children and increased access to drinking water and sanitation as a result of UNICEF’s collaboration with governments around the world.
She, however, observed that Africa still carried the burden of the highest percentage of under-five mortality, neonatal deaths, out-of-school, malnourished, undernourished and stunted children.
Nana Oye was speaking at a side event dubbed the ‘UNICEF Special Focus Session on Africa’s Children’ at the 2014 Annual Session of the UNICEF Executive Board held at the United Nation’s Secretariat in New York, USA from June 3 to 6, 2014.
Commitment
She underscored the commitment of African States to work closely with UNICEF to address those challenges, noting that Africa was on the rise with fast-growing economies and greater ambition and commitment of its governments to improving the lives of its people.
The minister called on UNICEF to ‘increase its investment in strengthening national capacity to collect and analyse data’ and scale up the engagement of UNICEF country offices with national authorities to facilitate knowledge and experience sharing, as well as expertise.
She further called for better monitoring and evaluation of interventions.
Responding to questions on Ghana’s progress in reducing infant and maternal mortality and improving school enrolment rates, at another event dubbed, ‘The Promise of Global Partnerships for Africa’s Children CRC@2039’, Nana Oye Lithur attributed the nation’s success, among others, to the integration of the Millennium Development Goals into Ghana’s developmental frameworks.
She also noted the strong collaboration between state institutions and non-governmental organisations in working to improve the lot of children in Ghana.
High-level meetings
Alongside the Executive Board Meeting, Nana Oye took the opportunity to hold high-level meetings with key officials responsible for child protection and social protection in UNICEF and other UN agencies towards strengthening Ghana’s legal and policy framework for the protection of children and other vulnerable groups, as well as the institutional growth of the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection.
The 2014 UNICEF Executive Board Session focused on major policy and programme issues and progress reports. Key among these issues were the consideration of the Final Results Framework of the UNICEF Strategic Plan, 2014 – 2017 report on progress of work in gender equality and empowerment of women in UNICEF, UNICEF Gender Action Plan 2014 – 2017 and nine country programmes.