The global body lamented that more than half of the infants deaths occured in sub-Saharan Africa due to preventable or treatable diseases.
The Assistant Country Representative and Chief of Lagos Office of the international agency, Mrs. Sara Beysolow-Nyanti, stated this in Akure, Ondo State capital at a press conference on Tuesday.
Beysolow-Nyanti regretted that despite significant reductions in child mortality globally, children still died of diseases like diarrhea, pneumonia, malaria, malnutrition, neonatal causes and HIV/AIDS.
She nevertheless said UNICEF had developed the concept of Accelerated Child Survival and Development Packages in order to achieve the component of the Millennium Development Goals.
She explained that the concept was packaged to ensure that the services needed by a woman from conception to delivery were carefully integrated.
This, she said, would lead to tremendous increase in survival rate.
She said UNICEF had been working with governments, community and civil society groups to build their capacity and achieve the goals of the organisation.
Beysolow-Nyanti commended the Ondo State Government for its collaboration with UNIFEC in the bid to ensure development of children in the state.
“Ondo State is the first to establish children centre and UNICEF is happy with the state government as it has taken the leadership seat in the collaboration and this has greatly led to positive results for the children of the state,” she said.
The Ondo State Commissioner for Economic Planning and Budget, Mr. Akin Adaramola, said the state had signed the Programme Implementation Blueprint worth N596m with UNICEF.
The commissioner, who spoke through the Permanent Secretary in the ministry, Mr. Chris Kolawole, said the programme would be co-funded by the state and UNICEF with the state paying N391m while UNICEF would pay N205m.
“The state had identified the areas of intervention and these include health and nutrition, basic education and gender equality, water sanitation and hygiene, children and HIV/AIDS, child protection, social policy advocacy and communication and emergency preparedness and response,” he said.
He explained that the state had established children centres and 25 family courts, saying this had been backed up with prompt release of counterpart fund for programmes implementation.
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