WUNRN
YEMEN - WOMEN & CHILDREN FACE
MULTIPLE CRISES
Photo - http://acelebrationofwomen.org/?p=44235 -
See World Bank Project Article in Part 2 of this WUNRN Release.
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UN Nerws Centre
12 July 2011 – Food insecurity is
on the rise in parts of Yemen, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reported today, adding that families are
trying to cope by liquidating their assets, skipping meals and diverting funds
from health care and education.
They were
taking such desperate measures because the price of fuel in the black market
has risen by 500 per cent since January 2011, WFP spokesperson Emilia Casella
told a news briefing in Geneva.
She added
that the price of bread has increased by 50 per cent, the prices of flour,
sugar and milk have risen between 40 and 60 per cent and water prices are also
going up – all of which are contributing to a worsening situation for the
general population and especially for the most vulnerable people.
WFP is
continuing to operate in Yemen despite the ongoing political turmoil,
occasional bouts of violence and a lack of fuel. Among its activities, the
agency is providing food to tens of thousands of internally displaced persons
(IDPs) in Aden.
An
assessment by WFP found that 90 per cent of the approximately 30,000 IDPs in
the city were entirely dependent on the local community for their daily food
needs. Moreover, 40 per cent of IDPs who had been interviewed said that food
was their most profound need.
Meanwhile,
the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is
renewing its call for all parties in Yemen to protect children from harm, noting
that at least 63 children have been killed during the protests that have taken
place across the country since mid-February.
“Over 700
children have been wounded, including 130 by live bullets or ammunitions,”
Marixie Mercado, the agency’s spokesperson in Geneva, told reporters.
“The
remaining children were injured during physical violence during the protests
and demonstrations and exposure to tear gas. The majority of casualties
occurred in Sana’a, Aden and Taize,” she said.
Yemen is
one of many countries across North Africa and the Middle East that has
witnessed a popular uprising calling for greater democracy and freedoms.
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http://acelebrationofwomen.org/?p=44235
Feb
2011— Around a million women and children in the poorest rural and urban slum
areas of Yemen will be the first priority of a World Bank-supported effort to
decrease child mortality and increase the well being of mothers. Many of these
women and children have not before been reached by any health services.
The
$35 million Yemen Health and Population Project was approved by the Board of
Directors of the World Bank today. It is designed to deliver maternal,
neonatal, and child health services to those districts in Yemen where there are
high concentrations of poor health indicators. In the first phase these include
districts in the governorates of Sana’a, Ibb, Reimah, Al Dahla’a, Al Baydah,
and urban slums in Aden before the services roll out to additional rural
governorates.
“This project is all about reaching people living
in remote areas who have real difficulty getting the services they need for
better health and well-being,” said Alaa Hamed, Senior Health Specialist at
the World Bank. “In development language we talk about this as MDGs
4 and 5 – the Millennium Development Goals designed to fight infant mortality
and improve the mothers’ health. For around one million Yemenis in remote areas
this will mean health services reaching them for the very first time.”
The child mortality rate in Yemen is 69 deaths
for each 1,000 live births, the highest rate in the Middle East and North
Africa region. At 58% for children under 5, Yemen also has the second-highest
rate in the world of stunting, a measure of child malnutrition for height and age.
Maternal mortality is the second highest in MENA after Djibouti with 210 deaths
for each 1,000 live births in 2008.
Less
than half Yemen’s population of 23 million people have access to basic health
services, a problem made all the more complicated in rural areas by widely
scattered and remote geographical locations. The challenge is to both improve
the quality of health services and to get those health services – and the
supporting logistics of medical supplies and drugs – to communities not served
by fixed health facilities which are unreachable for around half the rural
population.
To
help tackle this geographical challenge, the Yemeni Government requested the
Bank’s assistance in designing Outreach Services as an essential element of the
health service delivery system. The $35 million project will focus on around
one million children and just over a million child-bearing age women, about
half of whom currently do not have access to basic health services.
“The
government continues to address the challenges and contributes to the design of
a national program for better delivery of health and population services. But
there remains the pressing need to deliver services through population-based
and disease-specific programs, which this project provides,” said Dr. Abdul
Kareem Rasea, Minister Public Health and Population.
The
model designed for the project offers service in three ways. Integrated
Outreach Services will deliver a core package of maternal and child health
services at temporary sites using mobile teams on a periodic basis of about
four times a year. This will be complemented by community-based services
focusing on health education, active case finding, and referral, in addition to
home-based delivery. The third element of the model comprises referral
facilities for management of complicated cases that cannot be treated at the
outreach level. All of this is designed to complement the routine delivery of
services at existing fixed facilities and is not intended to replace it.
“This
is an ambitious project given the geography and a long history of struggling to
improve health service delivery,” said Benson Ateng, Sana’a-based World Bank
Country Manager. “We are combining our efforts with donor partners, namely,
WHO, UNICEF, and UNFPA, with the shared goal of really making a difference in
the health of many poor people in Yemen.”