Day: September 25, 2022

PRAIA – A week after schools reopened in Cabo Verde, the Government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cooperation and Regional Integration, and the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), today, signed an agreement to meet the food and nutrition needs of nearly 90,000 school children through the national school feeding programme.
“The agreement now signed reflects what has been the Government’s effort in mobilizing resources to support measures to mitigate impacts in the face of the most diverse global crises that we are currently witnessing, with enormous repercussions on the country’s development” said Dr. Miryan Vieira, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.
“The implementation parameters and actions within the scope of this agreement will contribute to the reinforcement of the measures undertaken by the Government, with a view to increasing food and nutrition security in Cabo Verde, in particular for the reinforcement of the National Programme for School Canteens” Vieira added.
Under a Limited Emergency Operation, WFP will purchase and transport food for school meals, using existing procurement platforms to cost-effectively source the food, while ensuring that national food quality standards are met. WFP will also provide advisory services to the government on programme monitoring, advocacy and evidence generation in food security and nutrition, while working to boost resource mobilization and partnerships with the government, International Financial Institutions, the private sector and other development actors.
“The Government has always appreciated the work developed and provided by WFP until 2010. We believe with its experience, the food assistance that is required today and, in this case, directed to school canteens, we will be able to achieve the objectives and results desired in the scope of this programme” declared Dr Gilberto Silva, Minister of Agriculture and Environment.
“School meals are important because they target a vulnerable group, which are children in the learning process and that, by giving them better meals, reinforcing school canteens, we would be reaching a little over 20% of our population. It is a very concrete step, the results are visible, the products have started to arrive, to be used and we wanted to rejoice with the decisions taken. The Government will do everything to manage this aid very well”, Silva added.
In Cabo Verde, the National School Feeding Programme kicked off in 1979 with WFP’s support to increase school enrolment, boost learning, combat hunger and meet the nutritional needs of students. In 2010, the programme became fully owned and run by the government, becoming the first nationally owned school feeding programme in West Africa. Today, the programme covers 788 schools and supports 89,715 pre-school, primary and secondary students. It has helped drive up enrolment rates in primary schools while providing social protection for the most vulnerable families.
“The Cabo Verdean National School Feeding Programme is a definite success story, and it needs to be sustained. For this is to happen, support from international partners is needed during this difficult time to ensure that, notwithstanding the serious challenges that the country’s economy is going through, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic and further aggravated by the Russia-Ukraine crisis, this important national safety net and investment in children is maintained” said Chris Nikoi, WFP’s Regional Director for West Africa.

“WFP is committed to working with Governments, development partners and the private sector to replicate the Cabo Verdean example in other countries across the region and ensure sustainable national school feeding programmes are in place for children to learn, thrive and to reach their full potential” Nikoi added.
Cabo Verde’s economy has been badly impacted by the compounding effects of climate extremes, the COVID-19 pandemic, and the disruption to food supply chains due to unfolding conflict in Ukraine which has driven up the prices of food, fuel and fertilizer.

Source: World Food Programme

UNITED NATIONS— UN Children’s Fund UNICEF warned that children in the Horn of Africa and the vast Sahel region “could die in devastating numbers” without urgent intervention and support.

In the last five months, the number of people in Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia without reliable access to safe water has risen from 9.5 million to 16.2 million

Children in Sahel are also facing water insecurity. This crisis has led to the proliferation of severe malnutrition and increased the risk of serious water-borne diseases.

“When water either isn’t available or is unsafe, the risks to children multiply exponentially,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell. “Across the Horn of Africa and the Sahel, millions of children are just one disease away from catastrophe.”

In Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Niger and Nigeria, drought, conflict, and insecurity are driving the water insecurity problem as World Water Week gets underway in the Swedish capital, Stockholm.

According to WHO data, 40 million children face high to extremely high levels of water vulnerability. More children die due to unsafe water and sanitation in the Sahel than in any other part of the world. The nascent crisis will only heighten this, said UNICEF.

Most people in the Horn of Africa rely on water delivered by vendors on trucks or donkey carts. In areas worst hit by drought, water is no longer affordable for many families, said UNICEF:

In Kenya, 23 counties have seen significant price hikes, topped by Mandera at a 400 per cent increase and Garissa at 260 per cent, compared to January 2021 figures.
In Ethiopia, the cost of water in June this year has doubled in the Oromia region and 50 per cent in Somali, compared to the onset of the drought in October 2021.
In Somalia, average water prices climbed 85 per cent in South-Mudug, and 55 and 75 per cent, respectively, in Buurhakaba and Ceel Berde, compared to prices in January this year.
Furthermore, in Kenya, over 90 per cent of open water sources – such as ponds and open wells – in drought-affected areas are either depleted or dried up, posing a serious risk of disease outbreak.

Across the Sahel, water availability has also dropped by more than 40 per cent in the last 20 years. This drastic decline in water resources is largely due to climate change and complex factors such as destructive conflict patterns.

The effect of this insecurity also facilitated the region’s worst cholera outbreak in the last six years, leading to 5,610 cases and 170 deaths in Central Sahel.

Specifically, outbreaks of acute watery diarrhoea and cholera in Somalia have been reported in almost all drought-affected districts. 8,200 cases were reported between January and June 2022, more than double the number of cases reported during the same period last year.

In a region already burdened with 2.8 million malnourished children, water vulnerability makes children 11 times more likely to die from water-borne diseases than those well nourished, said UNICEF.

Almost two-thirds of these affected are children under the age of five. Between June 2021 and June 2022, UNICEF and partners treated more than 1.2 million cases of diarrhoea in children under five in the worst drought-hit regions of Ethiopia’s Afar, Somalia, SNNP and Oromia.

To combat this crisis, UNICEF provides life-saving aid and resilient services to children and their families in dire need across the Horn of Africa and the Sahel.

Schemes include improving access to climate-resilient water, sanitation and hygiene services; drilling for reliable sources of groundwater and developing solar systems; identifying and treating children with malnutrition, and scaling up prevention services.

UNICEF’s appeal to improve families’ long-term resilience in the Horn of Africa region – and stop drought devastating lives for years to come – is currently just three per cent funded.

Almost no money has been received for the section devoted to water, sanitation and climate resilience. The appeal for the Central Sahel region to meet the needs of vulnerable children and families with water, sanitation, and hygiene programmes is only 22 per cent funded.

Russell, at the beginning of this year’s World Water Week, appealed for better funding: “Families across drought-impacted regions are being forced into impossible choices. The only way to stop this crisis is for governments, donors, and the international community to step up funding to meet children’s most acute needs and provide long-term, flexible support to break the cycle of crisis.”

Source: Nam News Network

ARUSHA— The African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights Judges will undertake a five-day peer-to-peer visit to the European Court of Human Rights, the International Court of Justice, and the International Criminal Court.

The visit which is fixed for Sept 26 – 30 is aimed at exchanging experiences, and enhancing cooperation among the continental judicial fraternity, a statement signed by Dr. Robert Eno, African Court Registrar.

The African Court statement explained that the purpose of the visit was also to generally engage with global judicial institutions, whose mandates stood at the intersection between public international law, and human rights justice.

The African Court’s delegation which includes seven Judges, Legal Officers, and Registry Staff, would be led by its President Lady Justice Imani Daud Aboud.

According to the statement, the visit is part of the African Court’s long-standing endeavour to pursue cooperation with peer institutions involved in human rights adjudication in a bid to reinforce judicial dialogue and exchange practices pertinent to international justice.

The African Continental Court is composed of eleven Judges, nationals of Member States of the African Union elected in their individual capacity.

The African Court was established by pursuant to Article one of the Protocol to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights on the Establishment of an African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights, (the Protocol) which was adopted by Member States of the then Organisation of African Unity in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, in June 1998. The Protocol came into force on Jan 25,2004.

Source: Nam News Network