The Ministry of Community Development and Social Services has welcomed the new Chief of Social Policy at UNICEF, Ms Tayllor Renee Spandafora, with a pledge for continued collaboration on issues surrounding human development.

Ministry Permanent Secretary, Ms. Angela Kawandami acknowledged UNICEF’s role in championing various programmes such as the promotion of children’s rights and ending early and child marriages which she said requires continued collaboration to effectively address.

“As you know, the Republican President Mr Hakainde Hichilema is the African Union (AU) Champion on Ending Child marriages, which gives us a great opportunity to go beyond the ordinary in fighting for children’s rights especially with regards to early and child marriages”, she said.

This came to light when UNICEF Country Representative, Ms Penelope Campbell paid a courtesy call to formally introduce Ms Spandafora.

The Permanent Secretary expressed confidence and optimism that Ms Spandafora will be instrumental in advancing poverty reduction policies and programmes.

Ms. Kawandami said with Zambia scheduled to host, the Child Line Conference and also launch the National Social Protection Policy, UNICEF remains a dependable partner in championing sustainable social protection.

And Ms. Campbell appreciated Zambia for being resilient in addressing various climate change induced challenges and called for a comprehensive postmortem of the drought to effectively prepare for future socioeconomic shocks.

“We need all hands on the deck”, she said, with a call for collective efforts in ensuring the domestic and global attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).