EU, UNICEF, ILO train Benue govt officials on project based budgeting

…Charge govt on choice of programs

From Scholastica Hir, Makurdi

The United Nations Children’s Fund, (UNICEF), in collaboration with International Labour Organization (ILO), have commenced training of budgeting personnel in Benue State Ministries, Departments and Agencies, MDAs, as part of efforts to support the state to get it right in budgeting for live impacting programs.

The programme is funded by the European Union, EU, and implemented under the Supporting Sustainable Social Protection Systems, (SUSI), project.

Speaking with newsmen during the 2026 to 2028 Medium Term Sector Strategy (MTSS) workshop in Makurdi, the UNICEF Social Policy Specialist, Isaac Otabor said UNICEF is doing intervention to support Benue state in Program Based Budgeting, (PBB).

According to him, the intervention has four basic outputs which include the “Medium Term Expenditure Framework, which is the basis for preparing the annual budget. What they are currently doing now is the Medium Term Sector Strategy with focus on four sectors which are Education, Health, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene, (WASH), and Social Protection.

“And the last output will be to support the state to come out with Budget Performance Indicator and Monitoring Mechanism.

“We are hoping that this training will make Benue State to be more focused when it comes to budget preparation. It will not be implemental budgeting but it will be based on programmes and projects. Benue State will identify projects that will have maximum impact on the citizens, cost it and go for it.

“We are also considering budget implementation, performance indicators because we need to track the performance on regular basis throughout budget time frame. This project is implemented at the Federal Level and four states in Nigeria namely Benue, Abia, Sokoto and Oyo.”

Otabor, who office has special focus on Child Poverty and Public Financial Management, said UNICEF is happy to be providing the technical support through the funding of the European Union and urged the officers to take it seriously for the good of budgeting and budget implementation in Benue state.

Earlier, the Director General of Benue State Budget and Economic Planning Commission, (BSBEPC), Prof. Jerome Andohol appreciated UNICEF for the intervention saying before the training budgeting personnel in the MDAs were having it difficult trying to cost and map out programmes “that are in tune with the 10 year development plan.

“So it is wonderful that UNICEF and its partners have done this for us because when I came as Director General it was one of the key things that I found challenging among our personnel.”

Prof. Andohol said with the training, budgeting personnel would be Knowledgeable in aggregating budgets with the development plan of the government and be able to properly spread out allocations to projects to achieve implementing target.

The lead consultant of the programme, Mr. David Adeosun explained that the intervention involved series of activities “starting with putting together the Medium Term Expenditure Framework, (MTEF), and fiscal strategy paper and also moving from there to Medium Term Sector Strategy, (MTSS), this is a three-year plan for the government.

“This has tremendous benefit for the state because it will ensure that you have an instrument which is the annual budget to implement the development plan you have put in place unlike in some other states where you have the development plan separately and have the annual budget that is not speaking to it.

“This programme based budgeting will enable the government implement priority projects that have high level multiplier effects in the state that would also address the concerns of the vulnerable who usually do not have voices.”

One of the participants and Head of Department, Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation at the Benue State Rural Water Supply and Sanitation Agency, (BERWASSA), Mr Joshua Gwaza also commended UNICEF for the training to impact their knowledge saying “before now we could just prepare budgets anyhow and not being specific, but we have actually gained a lot and going forward our budget preparation would be more directed and result oriented compared to what we were doing before.”

The theme of the training is “Introduction to Programme Based Budgeting for 2026 Budget in Benue State.”