The Nigerian Government has validated over 40 strategic policy instruments and Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) designed to strengthen protection systems, economic inclusion, and service delivery for women, children, families, and vulnerable populations, marking a major milestone in Nigeria’s social development reform agenda.
The validation was announced by the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, at the closing ceremony of the National Review and Validation Meeting of Nigeria’s Periodic Reports to the United Nations and Strategic Policy Documents held in Abuja.
Describing the exercise as a defining moment in the Presidential Declaration of the Year of Families and Social Development, the Minister said the reforms emerged from a comprehensive review of the Ministry’s policy, legal, and institutional landscape undertaken after she assumed office in October 2024.
“What we uncovered was a deeply sobering, mixed reality that weighed heavily on our hearts: behind a facade of pristine, beautifully written commitments on paper, our actual implementation systems lay severely weakened and broken,” she said.
According to the Minister, the review revealed outdated policy instruments, fragmented inter-agency coordination, and the absence of Standard Operating Procedures required to guide frontline service delivery, creating a significant gap between policy commitments and actual outcomes.
A key outcome of the exercise was the successful review and validation of Nigeria’s Combined 5th to 8th Periodic Country Reports to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.
“This critical submission was long overdue, and clearing this backlog represents a monumental leap forward for our standing in the comity of nations,” Sulaiman-Ibrahim stated.
She noted that the reporting process had been deliberately used as a mechanism for domestic reform, aligning international obligations with national systems capable of delivering measurable results.
The Minister reaffirmed Nigeria’s commitment to major global and regional frameworks, including the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action, the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action, and the Sustainable Development Goals.
Among the validated instruments are the National Boy Child Policy, Revised National Children Policy, National Family Policy, National Care Economy Policy, National Adoption Policy, National Policy on Management of Orphanages.
Others are the National Policy on Management of Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Nigeria and Sexual Assault Referral Centres; Guidelines for Chaperones; and the institutionalisation of the International Labour Organization Convention No. 190 on Violence and Harassment in the World of Work.
The Minister said the policy architecture would serve as the operational foundation for the Renewed Hope Social Impact Intervention (RHSII-774), a nine-pillared programme targeted at all 774 local government areas of the country.
“By validating these modern frameworks today, we are pumping oxygen into RHSII-774, ensuring it has the policy ecosystem required to seamlessly deploy resources, establish standard operating procedures, and change lives across all 774 Local Government Areas,” she said.
Sulaiman-Ibrahim also disclosed that the Child Rights Act, 2003, and the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, 2015, are undergoing legislative reviews aimed at addressing emerging realities and new patterns of vulnerability.
She urged state governments and stakeholders to prioritise implementation, stressing that the success of the reforms would be measured by their impact on citizens.
“The responsibility now shifts from validation to vigorous implementation,” the Minister said.
The four-day National Policy Forum on Women, Children, Families and Vulnerable Groups and Convening of State Commissioners of Women Affairs and Social Development and Directors of Child Development, themed “Promoting Child Protection, Family Strengthening, And Gender Policies Through Systems Strengthening For Social Development”, was organised by the Ministry of Women Affairs and Social Development with support from UNICEF, Save The Children, Safe Online and SOS Children’s Village.
