From Mba Nnenna- Abakaliki
The USAID State Accountability, Transparency, and Effectiveness (State2State) Activity have organized a 2-day workshop to review Medium Term Sector Strategy for Health, Education and WASH sectors in Ebonyi state.
The workshop review held at the USAID State2State office Abakaliki, seeks to improve budgetary allocation for the three sectors of; Health, Education, Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) in the state.
According to the Public Financial Management(PFM) Specialist, Chibueze Nwonye “Medium Term Sector Strategy (MTSS) is a component of the Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) which sets out the projects and programs that will be carried out in a sector over three years and addresses the policy, goals and outcomes defined in the State Development Plan (SDP), how much each program and project will cost, where the money for them will come from and who will execute them.”
In an opening remark, the Commissioner for Primary & Secondary Education, Ebonyi state, Paul Awo Nwobasi, appreciated State2State for their impacts in the state. He urged the participants to be attentive and ensure that after the training, they share/practice all they learnt in their offices, adding “so that we will achieve the objectives of the People’s Charter of Needs, not just in Education or Health but in various sectors”, Nwobasi said.
Speaking on the impact of MTSS in Education sector, Mr Victor Adibe who works for Creative Associates International, and Ebonyi state Program Officer, USAID Learn to Read, said “we are advocating to have a budget line for Early Grade Reading in 2025 budget. We are looking at Primary 1-2, we want to catch them young by being able to read particularly in their mother tongue.”
He equally stressed that the essence of having Early grade reading in budget is to help Education sector in providing materials for training teachers, and also have a robust supervision across schools which will help pupils to do well in other levels of their education.
Meanwhile, the MTSS Consultant, Mr Chris Umebese maintained that MTSS is the only tool that can be used to implement the State Development Plan which is a 25year Development Plan for Ebonyi state, that aims to improve budget credibility and the link between policy, planning and budgets,” Umebese added.
