By Folasade Akpan
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has urged stakeholders to move beyond collecting research and evidence to using them to improve decisions and outcomes for children in Nigeria.
UNICEF Representative in Nigeria, Wafaa Saeed, made the call at the UNICEF Knowledge for Use (K4U) Summit on Child Rights in Abuja on Wednesday.
The summit, themed “From Knowledge to Action: Advancing Child Rights Through Evidence, Innovation and Learning,” brought together policymakers, development partners, academia, young people, media professionals and civil society organisations.
Saeed said collecting data and evidence without using the findings to change practices remained a major challenge.
“We spend a lot of time to collect data and to collect evidence, but if we don’t use it, it becomes a huge problem,” she said.
She said stakeholders should reflect on lessons learned, including failures, and use them to adapt their approaches in a rapidly changing world.
According to her, learning from what did not work required honesty, courage, integrity and openness, rather than blaming others or making excuses.
“We have to learn from what is not working well,” Saeed said, adding that stakeholders should be open about challenges and failures.
She said such openness should not encourage complacency but help organisations understand what went wrong after adequate effort and resources had been invested in an intervention.
Saeed also emphasised the need to put young people at the centre of knowledge management, learning and decision-making.
She said young people had lived experiences and were “experts in their own issues”, adding that their perspectives should inform decisions affecting them.
She said UNICEF’s work was ultimately about young people, particularly in Nigeria, where the population was predominantly young and continuing to grow.
Saeed later said the summit had reinforced the need for co-creation, noting that young people wanted to participate in generating learning rather than merely receiving feedback.
“What has really stayed with me is the message from young people, that they don’t want us just to give them back the feedback but they want us to have a co-creation of the learning itself,” she said.
Suzanne Suh, Head of the UN Resident Coordinator’s Office, said knowledge was more than information stored in reports or databases, describing it as a tool for guiding decisions and connecting generations.
Suh said research, evaluations and assessments provided evidence for governments and partners to develop policies that protected and empowered children.
She added that knowledge management promoted accountability and transparency by enabling stakeholders to track commitments, measure progress and ensured resources reached those most in need.
According to her, it also fostered collaboration and shared learning among civil society, academia, donors and governments.
“Knowledge is only powerful when it is accessible, inclusive, and actionable,” Suh said.
She called for investment in systems that collected disaggregated data, amplified children’s and young people’s voices in research, and promoted digital platforms, open data and participatory approaches.
Wayne Bacale, UNICEF Nigeria’s Chief of Planning and Monitoring for Results, said the summit was designed to bring together stakeholders to examine research, evaluations and assessments on child rights.
Bacale said the objective was to ensure that knowledge generated through research was translated into actions that improved the lives of children and mothers.
He said the process should continue beyond the summit through sustained dialogue and identification of actions that could translate research findings into policy.
Prof. Alphonsus Issara of the Behavioural Insight Research Design Laboratory said dissemination was a key component of knowledge management.
Issara said research findings should be shared widely so that others could learn from them and apply the knowledge.
He said participants were expected to make commitments and improve their actions based on what they had learned at the summit.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the summit featured high-level discussions, youth perspectives, research insights and practical conversations on advancing child rights in Nigeria.(NAN)
Edited by Abiemwense Moru
Source: News Agency of Nigeria
