The United Nations Children Funds (UNICEF) has commended the Katsina and Kano governments for expressing interest in piloting the Universal Child Benefit (UCB).

Fatima Musa, a social policy specialist with the UNICEF Kano field office, made the commendation at the end of a two-day workshop in Kaduna.

The event was organised for the joint Child Poverty Technical Working Group (TWG), supported by UNICEF.

According to the specialist, the development came at the right time, as it was aimed towards addressing child poverty.

Ms Musa explained that the development was a great achievement, adding that Katsina and Kano States were the first to solidly express their interest in UCB.

She noted that one of the government’s decisions to impact children’s lives is piloting UCB, stressing that comprehensive social protection systems and quality social services, including healthcare and education, must support it.

Ms Musa also mentioned that it positively affected children’s lives, reducing monetary and non-monetary poverty and increasing local economy multipliers.

According to her, the UCB programme is in line with UNICEF’s commitment to attaining SDG 1 and ending poverty in all its forms.

She said that in Kano, 69.2 per cent of children of 0-17 years old were defined as multidimensionally poor, while 59.5 per cent of children of 0-17 years were monetarily poor.

(NAN)