By
Chioma Umeha
Save the Children, an international
non-governmental organisation has announced plans to roll out Rota Virus, a
vaccine for children under five years of age. This was made known to the
journalists last week at the occasion of signing of the Memorandum of Understanding
(MOU) between the non-governmental organisation and Lagos State government at
Alausa secretariat, Ikeja, Lagos.
According to Mr. Roy Chikwem, an Area Operations
Manager, Lagos and Cross River, Save the Children International, the Memorandum
of Understanding sets out clear commitments by both parties to achieve the
overall goal of reduced mortality rates in children under five years through
evidence based interventions.
The MOU will also build trust between the two
parties and improve the predictability of behaviour of both sides to achieve
the overall goal of reduced mortality rates in children under five years
through evidence based interventions in nutrition, child survival- maternal,
newborn care and child health. Other evidence based interventions will
education be in the areas of education, children protection and better support
for frontline health workers.
While explaining the modalities the organisation
work in the State Chikwem said, Lagos State has infrastructure in the Local
Government Areas (LGAs) which they intend to leverage on to carry out the
humanitarian activities.
“Therefore, what we are trying to do is to partner
with them. For example, we have a project called Stop Diarrhea Initiative
(SDI). So we have been working in Shomolu, in partnership with the State and
have been able to implement several initiatives in the LGA.
“Within these five years, we should be able to see
how we can bring resources together, partner together and implement change in
the LGAs. At the moment, we are about to roll out the Rota Virus which is a
vaccine for children which prevents diarrhoea and we are already partnering
with the State, using our personnel to introduce this vaccine in Shomolu,” he
said.
The MOU signed which was signed within the week
has three-point agenda which includes: Stop Diarrhea Initiative (SDI). This is
a four-year project aimed at reducing under- five child deaths and morbidity
due to diarrhea by implementing the United States Children Fund,
UNICEF-WHO(World Health Organisation) Seven-Point Plan on the control of
diarrhea in Shomolu LGA.
The second one is Health Worker Capacity Building
(HCB) Project, which is a three-year project focused on building the capacity
of health workers in Lagos, Gombe and Kaduna States to deliver quality MNCH
services.
While the third point agenda of the MOU is Systems
Transformed for Empowered Action and Enabling Responses for Vulnerable Children
and Families (STEER). This is a five-year project supported by USAID/PEPFAR.
STEER seeks to improve the well-being of orphans and other vulnerable children
(OVC).
Explaining the importance of the partnership with
the NGO, Mr. Adetayo Bankole, Director Development Partnerships Department, who
represented the both Commissioner and Permanent Secretary of Ministry of
Economic Planning and Budgeting during the occasion, said that Lagos State is
one of the States that is ready to coordinate the activities of all the
different partners.
Bankole said: “If the activities of partners are
not coordinated, the activities may not have impact on the life of citizenry,
there may be a kind of clustering of the activities. But, we assist different
partners during the development of annual work plan, because all of them must
have work plan. The purpose of this is to support the State government.
“The State government cannot do it all alone and
the State government should be able to know that where they suppose to spend
some funds, the various partners are already there. Such monies that could be
spent in such areas would be saved for other areas. That’s one of the reasons
while we have this department,” he said.
Specifically explaining the state government’s
roles in the partnership, Bankole said, “we should be able to coordinate the
activities, we don’t want clustering; some local government may not even know
that we have some partners in the State. We have some LGAs and CDAs where many
different partners are operating.
He however implored the non-governmental
organisations to further expand their scope in the State.
“The Save the Children has been assisting the
State in eradicating diarrhea. They have been operating in Agege, Bariga and
Shomolu. In Lagos state, we have 57 local government areas, 20 LGAs and 30
CDAs, how could it be only three that would be benefiting from the activities
of Save the Children. That’s what we are telling them, if they involve us in
their annual work plan we will be able to tell them where to spread their nets.
Speaking further, he said, “If you(a partner) are
not recognised by the Ministry of Economic Planning and Budgets, the fund
channelled to development will just be going down the drain. The money being
spent may not have impact on people and the reason for having different
partners is for them to help the government in saving some funds.
“As we are talking of diarrhea now been handled by
Save the Children once government knows that they are spending money on such,
the money that the government supposed to spend on eradication of diarrhea in
the State will be channeled to another project.
The Director therefore implored the general public
to cooperate with the non-governmental organisation.
While expressing his optimism in the partnership,
Chikwem, the Area Operations Manager, stressed that he wants the general public
to know that Save the Children’s core mandate is to safeguard children.
“We hope that this partnership will be able to
expand our work and we will be able to reach more beneficiaries, more people
which may be hard to reach, that is what we are hoping that this partnership
will bring to us,” he added.
