UGANDA: First polio case in 13 years

Photo: Celeste Hicks/IRIN

A child receives vaccination against polio (file photo): Uganda has confirmed its first polio case in 13 years

KAMPALA,� – Thirteen years after Uganda was declared polio-free, health officials are considering an emergency operation to avert an outbreak after one case was confirmed in the north.

“A sample from a baby in Amuru district has been confirmed positive and we have decided to launch an emergency vaccination drive mid-March for all children below five in 25 districts neighbouring Amuru,” Sam Zaramba, the director-general of health services, told IRIN.

“We shall take on another 25 districts in the country after the first batch.”

Zaramba said tests conducted at the African Regional Reference Laboratory in South Africa had confirmed the wild polio virus type one outbreak in the sample taken from the 16-month-old baby.

“Now that the virus has finally entered the country, all the children below five are at risk of contracting the disease because the wild type of polio virus is very infectious and can challenge their defence systems,” he said.

“We are appealing to every parent or caretaker responsible for children below five to ensure they are fully immunised,” he added, saying district authorities had been put on alert to mobilise communities.

According to the ministry, when the virus invades nerve cells in the brain or spinal cord, paralysis of muscles that control swallowing and breathing occurs, rendering the child’s limbs, legs and trunk flaccid.

Globally, polio has diminished although it still occurs in areas of the Indian sub-continent and in west and central Africa. Uganda was certified polio-free by the World Health Organization in October 2006.

vm/eo/mw source.www.irinnews.org

ZIMBABWE: More people eating less food

Photo: IRIN

R.I.P the formal economy

HARARE,� – Urban hunger has deepened across Zimbabwe over the past three years, with families cutting back on their quantity and quality of food, according to a joint UN and government assessment.

The Zimbabwe Vulnerability Assessment Committee’s (ZimVAC) survey, Urban Food Security Assessment: January 2009 National Report, is the first since 2006, and reflects a sample of 2,677 households.

“Since the last ZimVAC assessment in 2006, the food security situation for the majority of the urban population in high-density and peri-urban areas has been worsening,” said the report.

National urban food insecurity increased from 24 percent in November 2006 to 33 percent by January 2009, with the worst affected areas in Matabeleland North, the westernmost province, and Manicaland Province, bordering Mozambique.

The number of households consuming three meals a day declined from 54 percent in 2006 to 23 percent in 2009, “clearly indicating that households are reducing the number of meals as a coping strategy”, the ZimVAC noted.

Trying to cope

“Limiting the size of portions, relying on less preferred foods and reducing the number of meals were the most common coping strategies among interviewed households,” said the report.

“This is consistent with the shift of the highest proportion of surveyed households reporting having three meals per day in 2006, compared to the highest proportion of households assessed in 2009 having two meals per day.”

According to the ZimVAC, households were also making do with less varied diets, with the average food consumption score – indicating the diversity of food on the table – declining from 64.88 percent in 2006 to 46.52 percent in 2009.

Even those families generally considered food secure were resorting to selling household property to augment their food stocks

The researchers found that diets rich in carbohydrates, proteins, vegetables, oils and fats were “considered as luxuries by households when they struggle to make ends meet”.

Most of the foodstuffs consumed by families were obtained through purchases, with own production – particularly of vegetables – supplementing the food basket.

Almost one-third of households interviewed confessed they had sold some of their assets, including livestock, to purchase food: even those families generally considered food secure were resorting to selling household property to augment their food stocks, but the trend “is worrying, as it is likely creating a vicious cycle of impoverishment”.

The survey suggested a lower reliance on remittances than perhaps previously thought. “The proportion of households reporting someone who support them [financially] from time to time declined from 28 percent in 2006 to 19 percent in 2009.”

An estimated three million to four million Zimbabweans – in a population of 12 million – have left the country, and their remittances are believed to be one of the keys to the continued solvency of households at home.

Urban agriculture, which over the years has been disrupted by municipal authorities who argued that town dwellers were flouting regulations, “continues to be one of the important sources of livelihoods for the majority of households in the peri-urban and high-density areas, after petty trading, cross-border trading and self employment”, the report said. However, urban crop production has fallen in the last three years.

Accordidng to the ZimVAC, Zimbabwe’s humanitarian crisis dates from 2000, the result of “a complex web of overlapping factors, some of which include erratic weather patterns; hyperinflation; shrinking economy and a receding international community”.

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source.www.irinnews.org

ZIMBABWE: Hardliners frustrating release of detainees

Photo: South African DFA

Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai

HARARE,� – The Zimbabwe Attorney-General’s office is frustrating an agreement reached between President Robert Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai for the release of political activists.

“President Mugabe and myself last week agreed that all political detainees who have been formally charged with a crime should be released on bail, and that those who have not been charged should be released unconditionally,” Tsvangirai said at a press briefing in the capital, Harare, on 25 February.

“The Attorney General’s office is wilfully obstructing the release of all detainees by abusing the appeal process, and that must stop forthwith.”

About 30 activists have been detained for allegedly receiving military training in neighbouring Botswana, which has long been critical of Mugabe and his ZANU-PF government. The charge has been strongly denied by the government of President Ian Khama.

The ZANU-PF hardliners are said to be security chiefs and central bank officials, who fear that the emergence of a transparent government could reveal crimes they have committed.

Roy Bennett, Zimbabwe’s deputy agriculture minister designate and treasurer-general of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), remains incarcerated on charges of arms possession and banditry, despite being granted US$2,000 bail by the High Court in Harare on 24 February.

The judge also ordered the former white commercial farmer to surrender travel documents and imposed stringent reporting conditions, after receiving assurances from Tsvangirai that he would ensure Bennett did not abscond from Zimbabwe.

The progress of the unity government – which came into force with the inauguration of Tsvangirai as prime minister on 11 February, after a power-sharing agreement was signed on 15 September 2008 – has been far from smooth.

At the press briefing Tsvangirai also called for the continued farm invasions by ZANU-PF supporters to cease, and said Mugabe’s unilateral appointments of Gideon Gono as central bank governor, and Gen Johannes Tomana as attorney-general, needed to be revisited, as these were contrary to the power-sharing agreement.

The re-appointment by ZANU-PF of the majority of ministerial permanent secretaries without consultation was also contrary to the terms of the deal. “The announcement of permanent secretaries has no force of law, and is therefore null and void,” Tsvangirai said.

dd/go/he/oa source.www.irinnews.org

OPT: Gaza borders must open � UN humanitarian envoy��

Photo: Iyad El Baba/UNICEF-oPt

Desperate needs: The aftermath of a missile strike in Rafah

GAZA CITY,� – On his first visit to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the UN Secretary-General’s Special Humanitarian Envoy, Abdul Aziz Arrukban, met with aid agency officials to discuss better ways of bringing in relief supplies and with Gaza residents to assess how much aid they were actually receiving.

The borders are still closed and goods and building materials still can’t enter, said Arrukban, a Saudi national who reports directly to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon and Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes.

Since Israel’s 23-day military campaign in the Gaza Strip ended on 18 January, Arrukban has brokered more than US$50 million in humanitarian aid from two Gulf countries , channeled via UN agencies, for the dilapidated coastal territory.

Qatar donated $40 million, of which $30 million went directly to UN agencies in Gaza and $10 million to the Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF), a stand-by UN fund established to enable the delivery of humanitarian assistance to those affected by natural disasters and armed conflicts [see: http://ochaonline.un.org/cerf/Donors/Donors/tabid/5370/language/en-US/Default.aspx%5D. Gaza received $8 million in aid from the CERF immediately after the conflict.

Saudi Arabia donated $10.5 million, of which the UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) received $6 million for emergency food assistance and $500,000 for fuel; and $4 million went to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Acting as a bridge between UN humanitarian agencies and donors, governments and the private sector in the Middle East and North Africa, Arrukban toured Gaza to see for himself the extent of the damage in the enclave and to ensure that relief supplies were actually reaching the most vulnerable people in the Strip.

Regular border closures

The most pressing issue, aid officials told him, was Israel’s regular closure of border crossings into Gaza.

“Aid cannot be delivered unless the crossings are opened,” Christina Blunt, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Gaza, said during a briefing for Arrukban by heads of UN agencies in the enclave.

Over the past few weeks, about 120 trucks a day have been allowed to enter Gaza by the Israeli authorities, OCHA estimated, with about half that number for the private sector. In May 2007, before Hamas won elections in Gaza and a subsequent embargo was placed on the enclave, about 475 trucks entered daily.

The UN envoy held meetings with officials from the Egyptian Red Crescent to discuss a mechanism to facilitate the entry of approximately 9,000 metric tonnes of what a recent Logistics Cluster report [see: http://www.logcluster.org/gaza09a/coordination/situation-reports/situation-report-20-26th-february-2009/%5D described as “unsolicited bilateral donations to the people of Gaza. The aid, a large portion lacking documentation and designated recipient organisations in Gaza, has been denied entry into Israel and is being held in al-Arish, Egypt.

The Egyptian government has mandated the Egyptian Red Crescent to take custody of these donations, which originate from a number of Middle Eastern countries, such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Yemen and Libya.

While some aid has entered Gaza, 1,700 pallets of humanitarian items are also stuck in Israel, according to the Logistics Cluster report.

Residents desperate

Aid is desperately needed by some of the 1.5 million residents of the 360 sq km Strip, the twelfth most densely populated place on earth. In torrential rain, Arrukban visited displaced residents in the Abed Rabbo area of Jabaliya.

“I am afraid to re-build my home again, Henan Salah, a 40-year-old mother, said. She and her six children are now living in the one room still standing after an Israeli missile struck her home. Salah said that just eight months ago she had rebuilt her home after it was destroyed by Israeli forces in an incursion then. Unable to buy cooking gas, she had to break up the remains of her furniture to use as firewood.

Tented communities have sprung up in areas where Israeli tanks inflicted heavy damage in densely populated areas.

The coldness is killing us, Khalil al-Gharabli said, pointing at his wife and six children sitting on a donkey cart beside their demolished home. Al-Gharabli, now unemployed, used to work as an agricultural labourer in Israel.

Donor concerns

Arrukban said that he must assuage donor concerns that their funds will be wasted if re-constructed homes and agricultural lands are repeatedly destroyed during Israeli invasions.

Perhaps just as importantly, he said he hoped to increase confidence in GCC counties that the multilateral humanitarian system works.

UN officials estimate that as much as 90 percent of Saudi donations to Gaza are bilateral – to the government, NGOs and charities. Donors will be encouraged to give cash, but if they choose to donate goods, to make sure it is allocated to a recipient organisation in Gaza to ensure their entry.

Arrukban travels to Doha and Riyad next seeking contributions from donors to facilitate reconstruction and economic recovery in Gaza.

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source.www.irinnews.org

GHANA: Women in power � trickle down?

Photo: Evans Mensah/IRIN

A woman voting in Ghana’s presidential election in December 2008 (file photo)

ACCRA, The arrival�of women at top positions in Ghana’s government and security forces has highlighted the question of�whether such milestones will translate into concrete benefits in women’s lives.

For many, the greatest boost not only for women but for all Ghanaians would come from empowering women economically.

For the first time women hold the posts of speaker, police inspector general and attorney general. Nearly two months after President John Evans Atta Mills came to power, promising a strong presence of women in government, Ghanaians IRIN spoke with are guardedly optimistic.

Hajara Usif, who sells tomatoes in the capital Accra, said she is pleased with the new government’s attention to women. But it must reflect in my life too� and very soon.

Usif and women like her might get a hand from Akua Sena Dansua, the new minister for women and children’s affairs and one of eight female ministers, who told IRIN a top priority will be women’s economic empowerment.

Usif, a widow and mother of four, told IRIN: I am not asking government to take pity on me and take care of my children for me. What she would like from the government is help for women eager to work, including credit schemes and literacy programmes.

Learning to read, she said, “is important for my work and I believe for the country’s development.”

For Baah Boateng, senior economist at the University of Ghana in Accra, any scheme that helps women would help Ghana. Women control the Ghanaian economy. Women are absolutely vital to the success or failure of the country’s poverty reduction drive.

He added: Because of their contribution I will support any day any initiative that aims to improve the lot of women and give them the necessary support.

Boateng cited statistics, confirmed by Ghana’s Finance Ministry: 70 percent of farmers and 90 percent of people working in agricultural processing and marketing are women.

Steep hill

Angela Dwamena Aboagye, head of the Ghanaian women’s rights group Ark Foundation, is cautiously optimistic. Citing the recent arrival of women to top posts, she told IRIN: It is important to view [these] as a step in a journey of thousand miles.

…Because of their contribution I will support any day any initiative that aims to improve the lot of women and give them the necessary support…

She said political appointments alone will not end the challenges facing Ghanaian women. We thought the establishment of the [Women and Children's Affairs] ministry in 2001 was a victory but as it turned out the marginalisation [of women] remained entrenched.

While gender parity is better in Ghana than in much of sub-Saharan Africa, women still lag behind. Forty-five percent of women are illiterate, compared to 28 percent of men, according to the USAID Women in Development project. Gross primary school enrolment is at 78 percent for girls, 85 percent for boys. The enrolment rate is relatively hight for sub-Saharan Africa, where according to UNESCO girls make up 54 percent of primary school students.

The Women and Children’s Affairs Ministry estimates that 15 to 30 percent of females in Ghana still undergo female genital mutilation/cutting.�

Scepticism

One analyst is sceptical about how far the government’s apparently pro-women stance will go.

Kwesi Amakye, political science lecturer at Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology in Kumasi, called a government policy to fill at least 40 percent of government posts with women “tokenism”.

Government after government has experimented with the issue of women but the problems remain,” he told IRIN.

Some women have similar doubts but hope the women now in power will prove them wrong. I am pessimistic that the government’s moves to boost women are just for show, said 34-year-old Dorris Azumah. The current government is showing some will but [real progress will require] some lobbying from inside and that is what I expect the few women appointed to do.

Julian Amakwah, 36, works as an accounts officer in the civil service. She told IRIN she has been passed over for promotions at work. I believe it is because my superiors doubt I am up to the task because I am a woman with a child.

She added: The change we are seeing [in government] will be meaningless if the women in power fail to push the agenda for some radical reforms in the public service. But I am happy because it’s a good start.

em/np/aj source.www.irinnews.org