Team lead, governance and stability block, UK foreign commonwealth and development office, Sam Waldock has said that full implementation of national social protection policy has potential to pull Nigerian families out of poverty and ensure that children are not forced into early marriages.
Weldock who spoke to Us during the report presentation on the implementation of Child Development Grant Programme (CDGP) to stakeholders in Abuja, said social protection can be a powerful tool in the battle against poverty and inequality and can transform society.
The UK envoy also appealed to Nigerian government to implement the recommendations of the implementation of CDGP findings which show significant evidence in improving malnutrition and poverty reduction by greater proportion.
Waldock added that child rights and early marriage was huge issues for UK government, saying that one of the best ways to help children attend school and for their families to thrive and prosper is through social protection.
“Social protection can be really transformative, it can lead to great improvements in people’s lives, pulling them out of poverty and then staying out of poverty,” he said.
“We believe that social protection helps to pull families out of poverty and ensure that children are then not forced to farm and get early marriage, and actually social protection is one of the most effective ways to tackle this issue. So, one of our recommendations and a key theme of today is that by taking up the evidence base on social protection around targeting around greater investment around stronger systems, and around the role of civil society, it can lead to improvements in early childhood marriage, and that’s very important for Nigeria, and globally and that’s why we are such a big supporter of social protection with the UK government,” he added.
SOURCE; https://leadership.ng/breaking-whitemoney-emerges-bbnaija-6-winner/
