PANDEMIC PREPAREDNESS NEEDS TO BE TESTED

24 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Government ministers and experts began a three-day conference Friday to look at international preparation for a possible influenza pandemic. According to the latest joint progress report by the United Nations and the World Bank (WB) on pandemic responses, 148 countries gave data about their pandemic preparedness plans, but only 53 per cent of them had tested these strategies in the past year and only a fourth had tested them at all. UN System Influenza Coordinator Dr. David Nabarro told MediaGlobal, “The plans I want to be tested are plans for pandemic preparedness.” A recent WB study indicated that a global pandemic could cost the world over $3 trillion; because of the interconnectedness of countries, a pandemic would lead to huge numbers of deaths and many people absent from the workforce, and such absences would cause a ripple effect that would bring about huge economic losses globally. According to Nabarro, “The next influenza pandemic will start as the result of a mutation of the bird flu virus.” Therefore, a key focus of the conference this weekend is to convince governments to better service and monitor their poultry so they will be able to instantly locate any new outbreaks of avian influenza. “This is an important conference because it is the governments themselves coming together to discuss their problems,” said Nabarro. The conference will include over 100 countries’ governments, as well as non-governmental organizations, such as the Red Cross.

PARTNERSHIP TO REBUILD SCHOOLS IN IRAQ

24 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: In an effort to decrease overcrowding in Iraqi schools accommodating children displaced by conflict, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Nokia mobile communications company have launched a $1 million initiative to rebuild eight primary schools. Nokia Middle East and North Africa Communications Manager Karen Bou-Fayad told MediaGlobal, “It was clear that the situation of the education sector in Iraq, previously high achieving, was facing a lot of challenges due to the unfortunate security incidents. It has been proved that rehabilitating degraded school facilities can dramatically improve enrollment and detention rates.” From the initiative, a total of 6,458 students, with about an equal number of girls and boys, and 307 teachers will benefit in the Erbil and Wasit Governorates, which have been prioritized for education support by the Ministry of Education. The initial phase of the project will last throughout 2008, and in this time 106 classrooms will be reconstructed, 11 new classrooms will be created to accommodate 770 new students, and essential learning and teaching materials, such as pens and pencils, will be provided to students and teachers. The schools will also have clean drinking water and necessary sanitation facilities, as well as playgrounds surrounded by walls to ensure protection of the students. “The project will enable more children to access learning and improve retention rates, especially for girls, create a child-friendly school environment and improve quality learning and teaching tools, which will lead to creating a safe and stimulating school environment,” said Bou-Fayad. The new initiative will be funded by Nokia and I2, Mabco, Delta and Watani, Nokia partners in Iraq, and is expanding on the work of UNICEF, who has rehabilitated over 1,200 schools in Iraq since 2003. UNICEF Iraq Chief of Education Mette Nordstrand said, “Iraqi children need safe and welcoming schools to reduce the impact of conflict on their education.”

CITIES REVEAL SHARP DISPARITY IN WEALTH

23 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: A new report released this week by the United Nations turned world leaders’ attention to cities, where wealth often coexists side by side with extreme poverty. Anna Tibaijuka, Executive Director of UN-HABITAT, said the rising levels of inequity cannot be disengaged from the global financial crisis, which she called a “housing finance crisis.” She told reporters at the report’s release, “The financial crisis we are facing today cannot be seen as an event – it is a process that has been building up over time and this process now has bust.” Traditional causes of inequality such as spatial segregation, unequal access to education and control of resources and labor markets still play a defining role in cities, but the report also pointed to emerging forces such as “digital exclusion.” The world’s most unequal cities, the report found, were those in South Africa. Beijing was cited as the world’s most equitable city, though its neighbor in the region, Hong Kong, tops the list as Asia’s most inequitable. While China greatly reduced its poverty over the past thirty years, since the mid-1990’s the speed of poverty reduction has slowed and even reversed, creating vast rural-urban disparities. The trend has spurred some to question whether economic growth translates into poverty reduction. “In addition to growth, we must also look at distribution issues,” United Nations University Professor Gaunghua Wan, an expert on Chinese urban-rural economic trends, told MediaGlobal. Indeed, the success stories of the cities report, countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia which have vastly reducing urban levels of inequality, have worked to incorporate pro-poor policies and income distribution into their economic development plans.

GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE AND HIV/AIDS A DUAL PANDEMIC, LEADERS SAY

22 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: At a conference on HIV/AIDS this week, Dr. Nafis Sadik, the U.N. Secretary General’s Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in the Asia-Pacific region, called for systemic address of gender issues in the fight against HIV/AIDS. According to United Nations statistics, in Asia at least 75 million men regularly engage in sexual activity with the region’s 10 million female commercial sex workers. AIDS activists and experts say the numbers reflect an unmet need to address the impact of male behavior on the epidemic. Sadik says that violence against women is both a cause and a consequence of HIV/AIDS. She told MediaGlobal, “The role of political leaders in providing space for such discussion is imperative. They have to take responsibility for protecting women and girls from sexual violence and abuse.” UNAIDS has called violence against women and HIV/AIDS a dual pandemic, but many say the ratification by member states of prohibitions against gender-based violence are not enacted in actuality. Ludfine Anyango of the United Nations Development Programme said, “We have continued to treat these two issues separately, yet they go hand in hand. The complexity of HIV/AIDS calls upon us to join together and seriously address sexual violence.”

PLUMPY’NUT PROVIDES SOMALI CHILDREN WITH A FIGHTING CHANCE AGAINST MALNUTRITION

22 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: In recent months, the number of Somalis in need of food aid and humanitarian support has risen to 3.2 million, a frightening 43 per cent of the country’s entire population. The United Nations World Food Programme, which is already working to expand its relief operations to assist 2.4 million in the next two months, announced their plan to provide Somali children at risk of severe malnutrition with the food supplement Plumpy’nut. “Several different organizations have been using Plumpy’nut and similar products on a wide scale for some time,” Marcus Prior, WFP Regional Public Affairs Officer for East and Central Africa, told MediaGlobal, of WFP’s first large-scale foray with the highly-nutritious, peanut-based supplement. The supplement, developed in 1999, is made up of peanut-paste, vegetable oil, powdered milk, powdered sugar and enriched with vitamins and minerals. “This specialized product is expensive, but worth every penny for its ability to save lives, particularly given the depth of current crisis in Somalia,” said WFP Country Director Peter Goossens. One of the great benefits of Plumpy’nut is that it not only allows children to recover quickly from the effects of malnutrition, but also protects them from malnourishment in future months. “This is a six-month operation at present, but we would certainly hope that it will be expanded and extended with the appropriate donor support, given that results from this first stage are as positive as we expect,” Prior explained.

POLIO ELIMINATION IN NIGERIA POSSIBLE WITH IMPROVED VACCINE

22 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The World Health Organization (WHO) calls improved vaccine to treat polio a “highly effective tool.” Polio, the disease that can cause permanent paralysis – which is considered to be a fatal condition – is today mostly prevalent in Nigeria and India, according to Helen Jenkins, one of the authors of an Imperial College London study published by the New England Journal of Medicine and Researcher at Imperial’s MRC Center for Outbreak Analysis and Modeling. Polio primarily affects children under five years of age. Most cases of polio come from Nigeria – 82 percent of all reported cases this year have come from the country, authors of the study said. However, it can be eradicated through the increased usage of an improved vaccine – a highly effective tool. The monovalent oral polio virus vaccine, known as mOPV1, gives a child in Nigeria a 67 percent chance of being protected from the disease, the authors found. This is a marked improvement from the standard trivalent vaccine, which gives just a 16 percent chance of protection. mOPV1 has been used since February 2006 in Nigeria, and it has had quite an effect – the number of reported polio cases fell by 75 percent between 2006 and 2007. However, mOPV1 is not being fully utilized in the country. While the majority of new polio cases are found in the north west zone of Nigeria, 21 percent of the children here are reported to have never received even a single dose of the vaccine. Furthermore, 55 percent have received less than the recommended four doses. Whereas the problem in Nigeria is operational, the improved vaccine is hindered by environmental problems in India. Jenkins identified one of them. “The problem in India is diarrhea,” Jenkins told MediaGlobal. As mOPV1 is not hindered by such environmental concerns in Nigeria, eliminating polio in the country is possible – if the remaining children who have not been vaccinated can be reached. As a WHO statement said: “To overcome the remaining operational challenges, full political oversight and engagement at all levels is necessary.”

IRAQI CHILDREN UNABLE TO ATTEND SCHOOL ARE HOME SCHOOLED THROUGH TELEVISION PROGRAMS

21 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: A new program, launched this week between the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and the Education Ministry, plans to reach the Iraqi children not attending school through a new 24-Hour, educational TV channel. Due to security concerns across the country, “enrollment in primary school in 2006/2007 totaled nearly 5 million, indicating 50 to 60 per cent lower participation compared to the 2006 reported figure of nearly 80 per cent,” Michael Croft, UNESCO Executive Officer in Iraq, told MediaGlobal. IRAQI EDU, the new channel funded by $6.5 million from the European Union, will play programs based on the national curricula paired with messages on peace and tolerance. “It is estimated that 75 to 80 per cent of Iraqi households have access to TV. The classes will be broadcast on a 24-hour basis, ensuring optimum coverage for children everywhere,” Croft explained about the program, which is not intended to replace school, only to supplement inconsistent access to education. Additionally, the channel will also be accessible to displaced Iraqi children currently living in other countries. However, this is not the only educational program UNESCO is providing to Iraqis right now: “the distance learning project; a university fellowships project benefiting Iraqi academics; an Iraqi School Textbooks Online website benefiting the out-of-school population, refugees and internally displaced people; the establishment of technical and vocational centers; an Information and Communication Technologies in Education project, which is developing the literacy and skills of MoE staff, teachers and students in the use of Information and Communication Technologies; and a Higher Education teacher-training project,” are all on-going UNESCO programs Mr. Croft explained.

SILENT KILLER CRISIS GETS A BOOST FROM THE FAO AND EUROPEAN PROFESSIONAL FOOTBALL LEAGUES

21 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The Democratic Republic of Congo. Eritrea. Burundi. Niger. Sierra Leone. Liberia. Ethiopia. According to the Global Hunger Index – released last week by the International Food Policy Research Institute – these countries have ‘alarming’ or ‘extremely alarming’ levels of hunger. But they are not the only countries that face a hunger crisis – also known as the ‘silent killer,’ according to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) – several other countries across the world face it as well. Now, this silent killer has prompted the FAO to join hands with European Professional Football Leagues (EFPL) for the purpose of raising awareness and funds for it. Their campaign – called Professional Football Against Hunger – was launched last week at a ceremony in FAO headquarters, with former Italian football legend and FAO Goodwill Ambassador Roberto Baggio, Ministers of Sport from Austria, Italy and Spain, and representatives from seven Members of the EFPL in attendance. “The EFPL is proud of joining the FAO at the forefront of the fight against hunger and malnutrition worldwide. We are committed to using the power of professional football and the influence of our 28 member leagues to eradicate this scourge – a problem that doesn’t affect only the world’s poorest nations,” Emanuel de Medeiros, EFPL CEO, said at the launching of the ceremony. The campaign will include a football weekend that will have all league and associate members involved. It is hoped that it will help raise awareness and funds for the fight against hunger. “It is difficult to reach a huge audience. Football is an excellent way of doing that,” Alison Small from the FAO, told MediaGlobal. The football weekend will take place between 20 to 22 March of 2009. The proceeds from the campaign will be used to finance micro-projects in developing countries, said Jacques Diouf, FAO Director-General. Currently, there are 2,600 of such projects in 130 countries.

ZIMBABWE EDUCATION SYSTEM IN A STATE OF CRISIS, REPORTS UNICEF

20 October 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Once the best in Africa, the Zimbabwe Education system is in a state of emergency, reports the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). Recent routine monitoring visits showed that only 40 percent of the country’s teachers were reporting to work, only a third of the students were showing up for classes and that district education officers were not equipped to run national exams. “Between a two-month teachers strike, limited learning materials, political violence and displacements, Zimbabwe’s children have lost a whole year of schooling,” said UNICEF Representative, Roeland Monasch. This current crisis has said to cripple schools across the country and has left most schools operating at below capacity. The tense political situation in the country does not help matters, but “the deterioration can be attributed to a combination of factors, chief among these the declining economy, this has led to an erosion of public financing of the sector in real terms, it has also resulted in high staff attrition and reduction in provision of learning materials,” UNICEF Zimbabwe Communication Officer Tsitsi Singizi told MediaGlobal. UNICEF notes that it is critical that the education sector is not left to collapse and that schools should offer children not only an education but “a safe haven from home pressures amid Zimbabwe’s current challenges.” Currently, the children are not receiving such support. “The future of Zimbabwe hinges on education, without a viable economy today, the country’s prospects are in danger. An educated, informed and vibrant Zimbabwean is the only way to steer the country out of its current crisis to a state of social and economic development,” said Singizi.