By Kanayo Umeh, Abuja | 26 January 2017 | 3:55 am
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is a United Nations programme that provides humanitarian and developmental assistance to children and mothers in developing countries. In Nigeria, the organisation works to promote a world in which every child has a fair chance in life from distributing life-saving aid to women and children in emergency situations, to working with the government to ensure that vaccines are available to children, regardless of their geographical location.
According to Victoria Udoh, National Coordinator, UNICEF/U-Report Nigeria, “apart from health, the agency also works in other sectors such as education, Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV)/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), social protection, nutrition, as well as, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and child protection.”
In order to access information and monitor situation in these critical sectors, UNICEF has created U-Report Nigeria Voice Matter (U-RNVM), an online poll platform conducted weekly to study various socio-economic and health issues across the country. The platform seeks to know the most Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to be tackled by the government. Interestingly, in most of the online administered reports, many Nigerians are concerned about critical sectors, as it has been noted that poverty in the country remains significant despite the country’s enormous natural resources.