Stakeholders in Bauchi Trained on Safe Schools Declaration in the State

From, Ahmed Ahmed

The Women Advocates Research and Documentation Center (WARDC) has conducted a two day capacity building for 30 Stakeholders Safe Schools Declaration (SSD) for policy formulation and effective implementation in Bauchi state.

According to Ms Jennifer Nwokedike, an official of WARDC said that the training session was aimed to create Awareness of participants on SSD.

She said that the programme aimed at strengthening the capacity of participants for effective advocacy on formulation and adoption of legal framework for implementation and establishing partnership with the Government on state plan for SSD.

She said that WARDC and partners would be implementing the project for two years.

The exercise was tagged" Training of Trainers(TOT) workshop on Legislative Advocacy for Community leaders,Civil Society Organization and School Administrators for the Effective implementation of Safe Schools Policies in Nigeria. 

The programme is also a partnership with Syndicate in Supporting Women and Children Initiative (SISWACHI) with funding from the United Nation for Democracy fund (UNDEF).

Furthermore,Dr Akintayo Akinola, a consultant and facilitator said that Nigeria signed an SSD agreement in 2017 and has a National Plan for financing SSD in 2022 for implementation.

" Nigeria launched the National Plan for financing SSD in December,2022.

"Implementation of SSD will be funded through annual budget provision from federal ,state and local governments." 

 "The National Plan has an investment of about N144.billion from 2023 to 2026," he said.

Akinola said that participants were expected to utilize knowledge gained during the training to advocate for SSD policies to come into law to expedite implementation.