By: Ushornye Grace.
Cross River State Government has restated its commitment to the existing Partnership between the United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) under the Spotlight Initiative Programme.
The state Commissioner for International Development Cooperation, Dr Inyang Asibong gave the assurances while recieving the UN/EU delegation in her office as part of their visit to the State.
Asibong said the UN/EU has helped Cross River in creating the needed impacts in eliminating Gender Based Violence in the State, noting that the core needs of the programmehas been felt by the citizens.
The MIDC Commissioner reiterated the position of Cross River State Governor, Prof. Ben Ayade towards the success of the Spotlight Initiative on zero tolerance on Gender Based Violence (GBV).
“The purpose of this joint monitoring visit is to assess the progress made so far against the results reported in the preceding Annual Report of the Spotlight Initiative programme and we support this efforts as Government.
“The visitors met on arrival are all the implementing partners, concerned officials of the state government and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), before you proceeded on a tour of the various sites in Calabar Municipality and Calabar South Local Government Areas will further help you your data collections” Asibong added.
Speaking earlier , The UN Team leader from the Resident Coordinator’s Office, Mr Yinka Akibu presented the fact sheets on findings from the tour, and make recommendations for better programme delivery in the years ahead.
Yinka Commended Cross River stste Government For being responsive and responsible to all the core objectives and purpose of the Spotlight programme in the affected LGAs in the State.
The UN/EU Spotlight Initiative was in Cross River on a four days working visit on advocacy and awareness on the need to eliminate all forms of violence against women and girls in Nigeria.
Subsequently,a joint monitoring visit by the bodies to be monitored by the federal government of Nigeria, the Civil Society Reference Group and the UN Spotlight M&E Group will carry out enhance ownership, transparency and achieve better development results backed by the evidence-based data.
