The Sokoto government has commenced a two-day capacity-building workshop for key stakeholders aimed at developing a two-year medium-term expenditure framework.

The two-day workshop, held in Birnin Kebbi on Wednesday, was organised by the Sokoto State Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning in collaboration with UNICEF.

Declaring the workshop open, the commissioner for budget and economic planning, Abubakar Muhammad-Zayyana, reaffirmed the administration’s commitment to ensuring a substantial increase in child-sensitive sectors’ budgetary allocation.

He noted that the training aligned with Governor Ahmad Aliyu’s reform agenda, seeking to institutionalise best practices in budgeting, expenditure reporting and wealth distribution across the state.

The commissioner reaffirmed the government’s readiness to continue investing in the capacity building of personnel across ministries, departments, and agencies to enhance productivity and service delivery.

On his part, the UNICEF chief of the field office in charge of Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara, Michael Juma, noted that UNICEF had been supporting federal and state governments in designing and implementing social policy programmes in the country over the years.

This, he said, was achieved through the use of different approaches, contributing to the realisation of sustainable development goals, and focusing on the realisation of children’s rights.

According to him, it is a critical budgetary approach towards having effective, impactful, and sustainable spending on children.

Mr Juma added that UNICEF was planning to expand its programme-based budgeting initiative to six additional states in the country.

The field officer urged the stakeholders to start taking action for the 2026 budget, saying the aim was to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of Sokoto State government spending by linking financial allocations to specific programmes and their intended outcomes.

Earlier, the permanent secretary of the ministry, Maryam Ahmad-Barade, noted that the partnership with UNICEF was yielding a lot of results in almost all the areas of state development, saying that the current initiative by UNICEF to support governance was quite admirable.

The workshop, Ms Ahmad-Barade said, was an opportunity to share their thoughts and experiences, which should enable the state to forge ahead in its journey towards the realisation of the envisaged objectives.

(NAN)