New Zimbabwean Government must resolve disastrous school crisis, UN warns

Zimbabwe’s education crisis is worsening with nearly all rural schools closed, and the new Government must make the issue a priority, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned today.

“The education situation is a national disaster,” UNICEF country representative Roeland Monasch said on the eve of the inception of a government of national unity bringing in the opposition after months of political discord.

“It is imperative that the unity government focuses on this. Children in rural areas already live on the margins, many are orphaned, a huge number depend on food aid; they struggle on numerous fronts. Now these children are being denied the only basic right that can better their prospects. It is unacceptable,” he added, noting that 94 per cent of rural schools remain closed.

Zimbabwe has been faced with a worsening humanitarian situation owing to years of failed harvests, bad governance and hyperinflation, as well as months of political tensions after disputed presidential elections in March involving the incumbent Robert Mugabe and the opposition figure Morgan Tsvangirai. The crisis has now been resolved by the unity government in which Mr. Tsvangirai will become prime minister.

Most recently it has suffered the worst cholera epidemic in its history, and Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said today he remained especially concerned at the humanitarian situation, noting that an estimated 3,400 people have died from the disease and more than 69,000 have been infected.

The education crisis which started last year saw a marked depletion of teachers, plummeting school attendance rates from over 80 per cent to 20 per cent and postponement of national schools’ exams. This year schools were opened two weeks late, exam results have not been released and learning only resumed in some urban areas for the few who could afford to subsidize teachers’ salaries and pay exorbitant tuition fees in United States dollars.

“It is the responsibility of government to ensure that every child receives an education. The burden of salaries, learning material and school maintenance should not fall on parents,” Mr. Monasch said. “This is just not sustainable, most parents cannot carry this burden and many children will fall between the cracks, and rural schools bear testimony to this.”

Now on the brink of collapse, Zimbabwe's education system was once the best in Africa, but past successes have been reversed by a raft of problems hinging on the lack of financing, which has led to a marked declined in the pay envelope of teachers and school improvement grants.

UNICEF already provides support to the Ministry of Education, Sport, and Culture – $17 million over the last two years – for classroom construction, school fees aid to over 100,000 children, textbooks, learning materials, boreholes, and toilets in rural schools, but teachers remain vital and support to bring them back to the classroom is needed.

“Strong, swift and decisive national leadership is critical at this juncture but so is international support to the sector,” Mr Monasch said. “This is an opportunity for all stakeholders to show their commitment to Zimbabwe and its children.
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UNICEF seeks $1 billion to aid women and children in crises

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) today appealed for over $1 billion to fund its emergency relief operations as thousands of vulnerable women and children die on a daily basis from hunger, disease, violence and poverty in crises that are mostly overlooked.

“Of the more than nine million children under the age of five who die each year, malnutrition is a contributing cause in a third of those deaths,” said UNICEF Executive Director Ann M. Veneman.

“Sadly, their deaths go largely unnoticed,” Ms. Veneman added at a press conference in Geneva, launching UNICEF’s 2009 Humanitarian Action Report (HAR), which highlights the plight of women and children around the globe in humanitarian emergencies and is used as the agency’s annual funding appeal.

Ms. Veneman said that the report demonstrates that more must be done to help the millions of children and women whose lives are impacted by conflict, natural disasters and other humanitarian crises including epidemics and hunger.

“UNICEF is requesting just over $1 billion to provide children and women in 36 countries with life-saving assistance. This includes medicine, clean water, hygiene, nutrition, temporary shelter and safe places for learning,” said Ms. Veneman.

This year’s funding appeal is 17 per cent higher than in 2008, largely because of increased needs in eastern and southern Africa.

Over half the funds are to continue UNICEF operations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Somalia, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

In Zimbabwe, the economy is crumbling with the highest inflation rate in the world, the cholera outbreak is out of control, over half the population is receiving food aid and basic social services are collapsing.

“The cholera outbreak has already killed thousands of people. Since I left [Zimbabwe] just over a week ago the number [of infected] has risen from around 42,000 to over 57,000. The deaths have risen from 2,200 to over 2,800,” Ms. Veneman told the press.

The UNICEF report highlights recent studies warning that the risk of hunger could increase for some 50 million people worldwide by 2010 as a result of climate change.

“An estimated one billion people lack access to adequate nutrition. It is a silent emergency that desperately requires immediate resources and sustained solutions,” said Ms. Veneman.

Some experts have estimated that in the next decade children and women will represent 65 per cent of all those affected by climate-related disasters, making some 175 million children victims of climate change.

The emergencies described in the Humanitarian Action Report represent only a small fraction of UNICEF’s activities. Between 2005 and 2007, the agency responded to 276 humanitarian emergencies in 92 countries each year.

Over half of the emergencies were caused by disasters, while 30 per cent were a result of conflict, and 19 per cent were health-related crises, such as epidemics.

“These funds will help UNICEF respond effectively and efficiently to the needs of children affected by emergencies,” in over 150 countries where it has a presence, said the agency’s Executive Director, adding that “As a result the lives of many will be saved.”
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Women must be included in solving global economic meltdown, UN says

Governments must give women a key role in making decisions aimed at resolving the current global economic crisis, which is likely to have a serious impact on the full realization of gender equality, a United Nations committee warned today.

“While the scale of the current crisis is still largely unmeasured, it is expected that women and girls in both developed and developing countries will be particularly affected by the potential social and economic consequences, such as unemployment, increase of responsibilities both at work and at home, decrease of income and potential increase in societal and domestic violence,” the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women said today.

“In such a context, it is necessary to identify and respond to specific needs of women and girls. Gender perspectives should be taken into account in relation to the impacts of the crisis on both a long and short-term basis, including in relation to education, health, security and livelihoods,” it added in a statement issued in Geneva.

It stressed that particular attention must be paid to providing women with access to programmes aimed at immediately alleviating poverty and hunger, so as to guarantee that national and international efforts effectively reach those most in need and that funding of programmes for women’s empowerment is not eroded.

“The Committee underscores the importance of recognizing the unique contribution that women can make in the timely resolution of the crisis. It calls upon States parties to include women in the dialogue and decision-making processes around these issues,” the statement said.

It called on all States parties to the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), often described as an international bill of rights for women, to comply with all their obligations under the treaty in spite of the financial crisis.

Under the Convention, ratified by almost the entire international community, States parties are legally committed to take the necessary steps to end all forms of discrimination against women in any field – whether political, economic, social, cultural or civic.
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Zimbabwe:new government to tackle economic, humanitarian crises

Zimbabwe’s new Government of national unity needs to immediately address the economic and humanitarian crises, including the country’s worst ever cholera epidemic.
“The period ahead will also be critical for consolidating human rights and democratic freedoms,” Mr. Ban said in a statement issued by his spokesperson, welcoming today’s swearing-in of Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as Prime Minister in a unity government with President Robert Mugabe.

“The United Nations reiterates its offer of support to the new Government in its recovery efforts to ease the suffering of the Zimbabwean people.”

Mr. Ban recently met with Mr. Mugabe at the African Union summit in Addis Ababa where he stressed to him that the Government must protect the human rights and democratic freedoms of all Zimbabweans.

“I urged him to release all those arrested or secretly detained in recent months. I remain especially concerned about the humanitarian situation,” he told a news briefing yesterday, noting that an estimated 3,400 people have died of cholera and more than 69,000 have been infected.

Zimbabwe has been faced with a worsening humanitarian situation owing to years of failed harvests, bad governance and hyperinflation, as well as months of political tensions after the disputed presidential elections in March involving Mr. Mugabe and Mr. Tsvangirai.
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Hundreds of millions in South Asia face growing water stress, UN report warns

Hundreds of millions of South Asians face growing water stress due to over exploitation, climate change and inadequate cooperation among countries, which are threatening river basins that sustain about half of the region’s 1.5 billion people.
South Asia is home to one-fourth of the global population, including some of the world’s poorest people, who have access to less than 5 per cent of the planet’s freshwater resources, according to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).

“Freshwater Under Threat: South Asia,” a new report produced by UNEP and the Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), examines the state of freshwater resources in selected major river basins in the region, identifies key threats to water resources development and management, and assesses the challenges in coping with these threats.

The three transboundary river basins assessed in the report include the largest in South Asia: the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna (GBM) river basin (which spans Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India and Nepal), the Indus river basin (in Afghanistan, China, India, Nepal and Pakistan) and the Helmand river basin (which covers Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan).

“Water is a vital resource for people’s health and livelihoods, especially in South Asia where these three transboundary river basins sustain about half of the region’s 1.5 billion people, and some of the poorest people in the world,” said Young-Woo Park, UNEP Regional Director and Representative for Asia and the Pacific, as he launched the report today at the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit.

The report calls for urgent policy attention and more research into the impact of climate change on water resources, infrastructure and management practices, as well as improved cooperation among the affected countries and integrated basin management.

UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner stressed the need to invest in the sustainable management of these vital river basins.

“These river systems are major economic arteries as well as social and environmental assets for South Asia,” he stated. “Investing in sustainable management is thus an investment in the current and future prosperity of Asia and will be a central and determining factor underpinning the transition to a resource efficient, sustainable green economy.”

The report is the first of a series produced by UNEP that covers three sub-regions, North-East Asia, South Asia and South-East Asia. A similar assessment was completed for selected river basins in Africa.

They are intended to complement the efforts of Governments, non-governmental organizations and development agencies engaged in improving the status of water systems in Asia.
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Assembly President calls for action to bring marginalized into mainstream

The President of the General Assembly today stressed the need to recognize the rights of the marginalized and boost their inclusion in local and global financial structures, during the launch at United Nations Headquarters in New York of the first-ever World Day of Social Justice.
In order to bring the poor, people with disabilities, older people, disaffected youth and other minorities into the mainstream, Miguel D’Escoto called for “policymaking that recognizes their human rights as full members of society” and “a financial system that includes those who are being excluded.”

He also spotlighted the “dominant economic system” which has favoured the wealthy while developing nations’ access to fair trade has been rejected.

“Poor, developing countries have been ordered by the Bretton Woods institutions to cut back on the social and economic programmes that ensure a decent standard of living for their citizens, perpetuating the murderous deprivation of their poorest people,” the President said.

The Assembly proclaimed 20 February as the World Day of Social Justice in November 2007, and this year marks the first time that it will be observed.

In the unanimously-adopted resolution designating the World Day, the 192-member body recognized “the need to consolidate further the efforts of the international community in poverty eradication and in promoting full employment and decent work, gender equality and access to social well-being and justice for all.”
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Survivors of Ugandan rebel massacres in DR Congo seek help from UN

Angry and traumatized survivors of massacres by the Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), which has killed nearly 1,000 people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), today sought shelter, food, medicine – and justice – from the top United Nations relief official.“The level of casual brutality, the callous disregard for life and the treatment of women and children in particular are truly horrifying,” Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes said on meeting the victims in Doruma town in north-eastern DRC. “The villagers have suffered dreadfully at the hands of the LRA.”

Mr. Holmes, on the third day of a visit to eastern DRC, met with Congolese army commanders and the Ugandan People’s Defence Force, who are undertaking joint operations against the LRA, to emphasize the importance of placing the need to protect civilians at the centre of planning and operations, and of better communication about the risks to civilians and humanitarians.

The Christmas massacres by the LRA triggered a wave of displacement from the villages around Doruma, a small border town seven kilometres from Sudan, tripling the population to 18,000. Attacks in this area left 364 dead with many more unaccounted for. LRA-related deaths in Orientale province are believed to have exceeded 850 since Christmas.

UN agencies and partners are working with the local authorities, the military forces in the area, and the UN peacekeeping mission in DRC, known by its French acronym MONUC, to expand humanitarian assistance and step up efforts to protect the local population. These efforts are constrained by the huge area where the LRA is operating, the difficult terrain and isolated locations, poor communications, and the threat still posed by the LRA, including on major roads.

The survivors asked Mr. Holmes to ensure the arrest of LRA leader Joseph Kony, who has continually reneged on pledges to sign a peace agreement and has been indicted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“For those within the LRA who feel sickened by the raping, injury and murder of civilians, I urge you to lay down your arms,” Mr. Holmes said. “These innocent people have nothing to do with you and have done nothing to hurt you. The burden of the crimes of the LRA should not grow heavier.”

The LRA has been present in the area around Duru in Haut Uele district since 2005, but had mostly refrained from attacks on civilians, particularly while the peace talks continued.

However, between December 2007 and August 2008, LRA rebels committed grave attacks on populations in DRC, Central African Republic and South Sudan, killing, pillaging, raping and abducting adults and children. Last December the Governments of DRC, Sudan and Uganda launched joint military operations against the LRA in Haut Uele.

Meanwhile, humanitarian agencies continue to tend more than 40,000 people uprooted by deadly LRA attacks in the Western and Central Equatoria states of South Sudan, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
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Financial crisis must not eclipse AIDS fight: U.N.

World leaders must not let the global financial crisis distract them from a "moral responsibility" to fight HIV/AIDS, the United Nations' top AIDS official said Tuesday.
Health analysts and government officials fear the global credit crunch could prompt rich nations to cut spending on health aid for the developing world, derailing United Nation targets for halting the spread of HIV by 2015.

"The world has a political responsibility to stabilize the market failure," said Michel Sidibe, newly appointed executive director of UNAIDS, the U.N. agency charged with tackling the pandemic.

"But the same world has a moral and social responsibility to make sure that the four million people who are on (HIV) treatment will continue to have treatment, six million more will have access to treatment ..." he told a crowd at a clinic in Khayelitsha, a township outside Cape Town.

Sub-Saharan Africa is at the epicenter of the global AIDS pandemic and economic powerhouse South Africa has among the world's worst infection rates. An estimated 1,000 people die here every day from AIDS-related illnesses.

Sidibe said achieving universal access to HIV treatment by 2010 -- a goal 111 countries have set for themselves -- was possible and said the $25 billion that UNAIDS estimates is needed to fund such a goal was "nothing."

He said he wanted UNAIDS to engage more closely with communities and to protect the marginalized, such as drug-users and sex workers.

"I want to make sure that UNAIDS becomes really the voice of the voiceless," he said.
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Zimbabwe's Tsvangirai takes office as PM

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn in as prime minister on Wednesday under a power-sharing deal with President Robert Mugabe.
The two agreed to share power last year to end political deadlock, but their mistrust and continued disagreements have raised questions over how well they can work together to rescue the ruined southern African country.

Tsvangirai, 56, took the oath of office administered by Mugabe at a ceremony in Harare.

The opposition leader won a first round presidential poll against Mugabe last year but boycotted a subsequent run-off over electoral violence.

Implementation of the power-sharing deal only came after increased pressure from southern African countries, fearing a total meltdown in once-prosperous Zimbabwe.

Mugabe, in power since independence from Britain in 1980, is one of Africa's craftiest political operators. Tsvangirai is a former trade union leader known for fiery speeches, but his leadership skills in government remain untested.

Zimbabweans hope the new government will bring policies to revive a country suffering hyper-inflation, unemployment above 90 percent, food shortages and a cholera epidemic that has killed nearly 3,500 people.
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