‘‘Sanitation, ODF priority areas for Unicef"

 Sanitation and campaign for open defecation free status would be the key priority areas of the 'Country programme of cooperation between government of Biharand the United NationsChildren's Fund (Unicef) for 2018-2022', said Unicef's chief field officer for Bihar, M Asadur Rahman, at a workshop here on Tuesday.

"The programme will specifically focus on sanitation and open defecation free (ODF) in the state. The other priority areas will be education, malnutrition, child marriage, child protection, child labour (physical, mental and sexual), infant mortality rate, strengthening anganwadi centres in state, adolescent empowerment, disaster reduction road map and child budgeting," Rahman said.

Unicef's water and sanitation expert Praveen More said Rohtas district was implementing the Lohiya Swachh Bihar Abhiyan (LSBA) with an objective towards collective behaviour change for achieving open defecation free status. "All the 19 blocks covering 245 gram panchayats have been declared ODF by the community. The district had initiated several innovative campaigns with Unicef support to achieve the ODF status. It took almost 17 months to achieve the ODF status. Rohtas campaign has been branded as 'Mission Pratishtha' and was launched on July, 2016," he said.

Unicef's communication specialist Nipurnh Gupta said, "As part of Unicef's ongoing media engagement initiative, we organize regular, informal, interactions on specific children related themes, to facilitate a deeper understanding about the issue, the progress, challenges and potential solution."

Unicef programme manager Shivendra Pandeya said they would support the state government on inclusive social policy with focus on initiating child budgeting.