FG Restates Commitments To Adolescents’ Well-being, SDGs

The Federal Government has reiterated its committed to improving adolescents’ wellbeing to further accelerate the achievement of related Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The Coordinating Minister of Health and Social Welfare, Prof. Ali Pate, stated this on Thursday in Abuja, at the 2023 Global Forum for Adolescents 2023, theme: “With and for Adolescents, Our Future is Now.”

The Minister noted that the government is prioritising adolescents and young people as a smart investment in the future of Nigerian societies, economies, upon which the sustainable development of the planet is dependent on.

Pate said, ” the Federal Government recognises that the wellbeing of adolescents is critical to achieving sustainable development.

” it acknowledges the importance of adopting a whole-government approach to addressing the multiple and intersecting factors that impact adolescents in the country”.

The Minister further assured that the government is committed to prioritising adolescent wellbeing and raising SDG priorities in the country’s national development plans, saying that strategies are already being formulated to ensure simplification of data collection for better understand of challenges and opportunities geared towards ensuring effective and efficient adolescents’ wellbeing.

” We will integrate adolescent specific aggregators into the monitoring and reporting frameworks by meaningfully engaging the adolescents themselves and young people in the design, implementation and monitoring of policies and programmes that affect their wellbeing.

“The Federal Government is totally committed to all efforts directed at the realisation of adolescents and young people’s potentials in nation building and for them to become healthy adolescents now, healthy in the future and flourishing healthy generations in the future,” said Pate.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) Country Representative, Dr Walter Mulombo, earlier in his address identified the importance of government in adoption of a coordinated and collaborative work approach in intersecting factors that impact adolescents.

“Strengthening our collective efforts to improve adolescent well-being will help accelerate the achievement of related SDG priorities for investing in adolescents and young people is a smart investment in the future of our societies, economies, and the planet.

“Nigeria frameworks will benefit more by meaningfully engaging adolescents and young people in the design, implementation, and monitoring of policies and programs that affect their well-being,” he said.

The WHO Country Representative therefore assure the Federal Government of its continued support in her efforts towards ensuring adolescents well-being becomes an issue of national priority and for hosting the Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health to coordinate the Global Forum.

The representative of the United Nations Population Fund, (UNFPA), Kareema Bungudu, in her remarks said that adolescents and young people under 25 years constitutes 63 per cent of the nation’s population and are a key focus group for UNFPA mandate areas.

According to her, these crop of Nigerians cuts across the three transformative goals of zero preventable maternal deaths, zero unmet need for family planning and zero tolerance for gender-based violence and other harmful practices, hence the need for them to be properly guided if the country must attain its Sustainable Development Goals.