From Kamilu Lawal, Katsina.
Katsina State Governor Umar Dikko Radda has revealed that 65.4 percent of children aged between 0 and 17 months in the state live in multidimensional poverty, highlighting an urgent need for coordinated intervention.
Governor Radda made the disclosure on Tuesday during a two-day capacity-building workshop organized for local government chairmen under the theme: “Reducing Child Poverty through Social Protection and Using Data for Transformative Evidence-Based Governance.”
The workshop was jointly hosted by the Katsina State Bureau of Statistics and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
According to the governor, about 1.46 million children under the age of five in Katsina are facing multiple deprivations across critical areas such as nutrition, health, education, sanitation, and housing.
He further noted that 61 percent of children live in monetary poverty, 51.3 percent are stunted, only 43 percent are fully immunized, while 33.3 percent are out of school.
“These figures highlight the urgent need for coordinated, data-driven actions to reduce child poverty and improve human development outcomes in the state,” Radda said. “Local government chairmen must leverage their proximity to grassroots communities to identify vulnerable households and ensure that interventions yield measurable progress.”
The governor added that his administration, in partnership with the federal government and development partners, has implemented programmes aimed at alleviating child poverty.
These include the Conditional Cash Transfer Scheme, School Feeding Programme, Skills Development for Women and Youth, and the Community Empowerment Scheme.
“We must consolidate these gains by strengthening the social protection system at the local level, building livelihoods, and supporting families to transition from dependence to productivity,” Radda emphasized.
Earlier, the State Statistician-General, Professor Saifullahi Ibrahim, noted that the workshop marked an important step in using data to tackle child poverty.
“Katsina has made significant progress in collecting and analysing data. Evidence-based policies enable the government to design interventions that effectively reach the most vulnerable children,” Ibrahim said.
The workshop brought together local government chairmen, statisticians, and other stakeholders to discuss strategies for leveraging data in designing impactful poverty-reduction programmes.
