The United Nations Children Fund, UNICEF, on Saturday signed collaboration agreement with Usmanu Danfodio University Sokoto, UDUS, on knowledge and experience sharing to ensure practical implementation of projects.
UNICEF Chief Field Officer in Sokoto, Mouhuiddini Muhammad, said the initiative was conceived for maximal utilisation of the university expertise toward addressing projects implementation challenges in various communities.
Mr Muhammad said university community hosted chain of scholars, research fellows and academic works that when involve in UNICEF activities would surely harness success and overcome hitches at implementation levels.
He said the initiative named “Partnership and Cooperative Agreement for Research and Knowledge Sharing” was aimed at holistic involvement of university expertise into UNICEF experiences for the benefit of all people.
He explained that UNICEF conduct variety of activities on educational development that comprises of enhancing enrolment, women education and facilitates curriculum development as well as addressing religious, cultural, social norms and barriers in the society.
According to him, UNICEF is also involved in health, water supply and sanitation activities, stressing that immunisation and hygiene efforts recorded rejection and non-compliance challenges that needed experts inputs for solutions.
“Effort is to ensure UNICEF personnel interact with lecturers and students through sharing knowledge and experience as project at time record failures which need scholastic attention.
“University has abundant manpower to serve as resource persons at capacity building training and conduct researches from UNICEF presented topics based field experiences,” Mr Muhammad said.
The field officer said UNICEF is conducting another five-year projects in Nigeria through its sustained programmes in partnership with governments for the benefit of people at all levels.
Responding, the Vice Chancellor of UDUS, Abdullahi Zuru, commended UNICEF for the foresight and dedication to ensure the collaboration become reality in spite of previous attempts.
Mr Zuru, a professor, said UDUS have line up of research and academic works at different departments geared toward prosperous developments in the society.
“UNICEF experiences will be reviewed by scholars and offer constructive measures of approach that would ensure practical applications and attract wider coverage and achieving success.
“Collaboration will facilitate discovering of existing gabs, areas of need and areas of improvement based on long term experiences gathered over the years,” Mr Zuru said.
The Vice-Chancellor expressed optimism that the effort would enhance UNICEF activities and benefit wider communities as well as uplift people condition of living.
The parties signed on behalf of UNICEF and UDUS, respectively, and the event was witnessed by the university management and UNICEF heads of units.
NAN
