In drought-stricken regions of SNNPR, children travel for hours to collect water for household needs ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Ayene

HALABA SPECIAL WOREDA & MAREKO WOREDA, SNNPR, 22 March 2016 – In the northern part of the Southern Nations, Nationalities and People’s Region (SNNPR) of Ethiopia, bright yellow jerry cans are everywhere: on main roads and dirt roads, carried by hand or piled high on donkey carts being led on long journeys. Whatever the method, the goal is the same: water.

In SNNPR, 73 out of the total 136 rural woredas (districts) are grappling with water scarcity. Out of those, 45 are severely affected. In many of these woredas, water scarcity is an old problem, made much, much worse by the ongoing drought, which is the worst this country has experienced in decades. The result of a double blow of climate change and the El Niño phenomenon, the drought has led to food shortages and threats to livelihoods and survival. 

When there is no water, education takes a backseat

Wogbela, 15, travels to a neighbouring area for water, returning home the next day. “I am late to school every day,” he says ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Ayene

Lack of water affects everything: food, health, education and children’s futures. In Washe Faka Primary School, located in Washe Faka Kebele (sub-district), Mareko Woreda of SNNPR, approximately 20 students have left school in search of work to support families whose livelihoods have been turned upside down by the drought. The children who remain in school are struggling.

“Students are coming to school with empty stomachs and leaving early because they can’t focus,” says Selfa Doloko, the school principal.

Fifth-grader Wogbela, 15, is struggling too. Every day after school, he travels hours to a water point in a neighbouring area. Because of the distance from his home, he has to stay overnight at a relative’s house. There are closer water points, but the long lines often mean hours of waiting.

“I used to go every other day, but the drought has dried up the ponds here, so I have to get water for the livestock in addition to water for the family,” he says.

In the morning, Wogbela travels home with his supply of water. He is tired by the time he gets home, but has to rush to school. “I am late to school every day,” he says, worried. Education is important to him, but it takes a backseat when there is no water.

Relief in sight

Munira, 13, is a student at Asore Primary School, located 30 metres away from a new UNICEF-supported water point. “It is much easier now. We can drink and wash easily,” she says. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Ayene

This is the story of so many children here, but thankfully for some, there is finally relief in sight.

For the students of Asore Primary School in Halaba Woreda, a new UNICEF-supported water point approximately 30 metres away means a new shot at learning. Students like Munira, 13, an eighth-grader at the school, can finally breathe a sigh of relief. “I used to travel two to three hours a day to fetch water. The wait at the water point was even longer. Sometimes the taps did not work and I would have to spend the whole day there and go home the next day. It was so tiring and a waste of time,” she says, glad that clean water is now just a short walk away.

Abdusamad, 16, another eighth-grader at the school, adds, “Some students had to drop out of school because they had to spend so much time collecting water. I’m more confident now that I can finish my studies and I want to help bring the students who dropped out back to school.”

As part of the drought emergency response, UNICEF, as the WASH cluster lead, is supporting the Government of Ethiopia and other partners in the rehabilitation, maintenance and construction of new water supply systems, provision of water purification and treatment chemicals, scaling up of water trucking activities, and provision of  sanitation and hygiene facilities in schools. UNICEF is also exploring innovative ways to use satellites to detect deep groundwater for large scale, multiple-village water supply systems.

With 5.8 million people around the country in need of access to safe drinking water, UNICEF and partners are racing against the clock to provide urgent help.

For children like Wogbela, it cannot come soon enough. “I hope things change soon,” says Wogbela, “so that I can get back to learning.”

By Araya Mengistu

Ethiopia is a country showing strong progress in achieving global and national goals for WASH services. It has achieved the MDG target 7c for water supply. Although still behind for sanitation targets, considerable progress is made. As of 2012, 37 per cent of communities practiced open defecation, as compared to 92 per cent in 1990[1]

The progress on sanitation is mainly achieved through the national Health Extension Programme (HEP) and the community led total sanitation and hygiene (CLTSH) approach. CLTSH is an approach that helps to mainly rural communities to understand undesirable effects of poor sanitation, and through a process of “triggering” – igniting a change in behaviour – achieve sustained behaviour change leading to spontaneous and long term abandonment of Open Defecation (OD) practices. Since its introduction in 2006/7, CLTSH has remained the only instrument in Ethiopia to induce behaviour change of communities to consider construction of latrines and use them – discouraging the practice of open defecation. Although the achievements in the past decade are significant, the success of the approach varied significantly from place to place.

For example, the Oromia regional state, the largest in the country, consists 265 rural and 39 urban districts or woredas. Out of 6,531 kebeles (sub-districts each with an average population of 5,000) in rural areas, about 16 per cent are open-defecation free (ODF) – meaning no-one, including visitors and passing pedestrians, are openly defecating and all have access to basic latrines with handwashing facilities.

UNICEF supports 24 woredas in Oromia state between 2011 and 2015. Of the supported woredas, 24 per cent (116 of 477 kebeles) have achieved ODF status. Compared to regional average of 16 per cent, this is a huge achievement. Sire, one of the supported woredas, has recently been graduated in 2015 with 100 per cent performance, declaring all 18 rural kebeles ODF. Other woredas are at various stages. 11 woredas are between 20-50 per cent progresses, while the rest 12 woredas are of 0-10 per cent progress. Compared to these, Sire Woreda shows an outstanding performance.

Such exceptional achievement requires successfully overcoming a number of challenges. A key challenge is lack of thorough understanding of the steps involved in CLTSH and their importance. Usually CLTSH is about training facilitators and triggering communities. However, many practitioners agree that this is the easiest part. Rendering adequate supervision after the triggering stage and providing support that is necessary to sustain the momentum is the difficult part. Other challenges include diffusion of information to neighbouring communities that make the approach ineffective, lack of trainers with actual field experience, high staff turnover, poor coordination among stakeholders, weak commitment of staff and trained people and application of CLTSH without adequate or proper organisation and preparation.

Growing over all these challenges and as a result of four years of effort, Sire Woreda celebrated 100 per cent ODF achievement in April 2015, with all rural villages and kebeles free from open defecation.

Even though, some of these kebeles were declared ODF two or more years ago, , they continued to sustain their status despite the usual trend of falling-back to OD practice noticed as time elapses. This demonstrates an effective post-triggering activity by the Woreda that effectively complimented the planning and triggering activity.

How was this achieved? The Woreda administration leveraged existing structures to sensitize the leadership ladder down to village level on CLTSH and built it in to the regular reporting and evaluation process. This has helped to mobilize the largest possible support to the effort of Health Extension Workers (HEWs) and CLTSH facilitators, including teachers and students under the guidance and support of the Woreda Health Office. It has also avoided diversions of focus (including manpower, logistics, and resources) as CLTSH has become an official woreda priority.

Two notable practices can be praised in the woreda for this success.  (a) the technique of triggering one full kebele at a time in contrast to the usual practice of village by village, and (b) use of different post-triggering follow-up technique suited to context. The advantage of the first technique was twofold. It helped to avoid diffusion of information in to neighbouring communities. Since, focusing in one kebele at a time required more trained people, the coordinators called upon trained and experienced facilitators from adjacent woredas to support, which worked really well. On the other hand, the woreda experts consciously applied different post-triggering follow-up methods. In highland areas, they applied the ‘flag system’, where by communities themselves awarded white flags to households who have constructed basic latrines, and red flags to those who did not. In low land areas, students were organized to alert the community when they see any one defecating in the open, who will then ensure the person buries the excreta.

Currently, the Woreda continues to strengthen the community platforms for monitoring progress and pro-actively works with local leaders to provide the necessary guidance and technical support to sustain the achievement. As a result of this, they are expecting at least two kebeles to achieve secondary ODF, which includes upgrading of basic latrines to improved latrines (with washable slab, vent pipe, hole-cover) with hand washing facility by the whole community. The commitment of leaders, and subsequent effective coordination in the Woreda has benefited the wider community to keep children, women and the society at large healthy.

[1] Joint Monitoring Programme 2014.

L-R) UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia, Ms. Gillian Mellsop and the Ambassador of Ireland to Ethiopia, H.E. Mr. Aidan O’Hara, holding jerry cans that are part of a donation consisting of water bladders and jerry cans worth over €110,000 (ETB 2.6 million) for the drought emergency response in Ethiopia. © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Balasundaram

13 April 2016, Addis Ababa: The drought caused by the El Niño global climatic event has driven food insecurity, malnutrition and water shortages in affected areas in Ethiopia.

In recognising the gravity of the situation, the Government of Ethiopia and its humanitarian partners have identified that 10.2 million people, 6 million of them children, are in need of food assistance, while 5.8 million people require access to clean drinking water and basic latrine facilities throughout the year.

In this latest tranche of support, Ireland has provided over €110,000 (ETB 2.6 million) worth of aid for the drought response. This includes 40 water tanks – 20 each with 10,000-litre capacity and 5,000-litre capacity respectively, 3,000 jerry cans, and shipment from the UN Humanitarian Response Depot in Accra, Ghana to the UNICEF Ethiopia warehouse in Addis Ababa. UNICEF will use these materials to scale up provision of immediate life-saving water supply across 31 worst-affected woredas (districts) nationwide through government-led water trucking campaigns. In coordination with the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Water, Irrigation and Energy, UNICEF will deploy the tanks to schools and health centres.

“Ethiopia has made impressive development gains in recent years and we must not let the drought undermine this progress. Our additional support is in response to calls from the Ethiopian Government to assist their humanitarian action; to save lives and protect livelihoods,” says H.E Mr Aidan O’Hara, Ambassador of Ireland to Ethiopia. “In recent weeks, UNICEF has been carrying out real-time water assessments in 30 worst-affected woredas. The April results show that 68 per cent of the population is using less than five litres of water per day in the worst-affected woredas. The water tanks from Ireland will be used to deliver water to the most acutely affected areas”.

“On behalf of the Government of Ethiopia and UNICEF, I would like to thank the Government of Ireland for its continued support for life-saving interventions in this drought emergency,” said UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia, Ms Gillian Mellsop. “Provision of clean and safe water is essential to prevent and contain outbreaks of water-related diseases such as Acute Watery Diarrhoea and scabies, as well as protect children from traveling long distances to collect water, keep children in school and support health and nutrition services.”

As the WASH cluster lead, UNICEF supports the Government of Ethiopia and other partners in the rehabilitation, maintenance and construction of new water supply systems, provision of water purification and treatment chemicals, scaling up of water trucking activities, and provision of sanitation and hygiene facilities in schools. In addition, UNICEF is exploring innovative ways to use satellites to detect deep groundwater for large scale, multiple-village water supply systems. As part of the overall drought emergency response, UNICEF supports programmes in child protection, education, health and nutrition.

The support to UNICEF comes on top of €9.1 million provided by Ireland to Ethiopia in response to the El Niño drought. This includes €3.8 million given in 2015 to the Humanitarian Response Fund, managed by the UN Office for Humanitarian Affairs. A further €1.8 million in humanitarian assistance was provided in 2015 through three NGO partners in Ethiopia: GOAL, Trócaire and Concern. In January 2016, €3.5 million was provided to the World Food Programme to provide highly nutritious food for children under the age of five as well as pregnant and lactating women. This year Ireland will also contribute €10.4 million to the Productive Safety Net Programme which is providing cash and or food support to some 8 million people.

By Paul Schemm

Ahmad, 17, demonstrates how traffickers in Yemen held him for ransom. A joint project between UNICEF, the International Organization of Migration and the Ethiopian Government, the transit centre in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia reunites migrant children with their families. © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Mulugeta Ayene

ADDIS ABABA, March 31, 2016 – As Ahmad* was being chased through the Yemeni desert by the motorcycle-riding human traffickers that had tortured and beat him in their camp for months, he thought he would never see his home village in southern Ethiopia again.

“I didn’t think I was going to make it home,” recalled the young 17-year-old with an expressive face and wide eyes as he described his five months of attempted migration to Saudi Arabia that resulted in him getting ransomed by traffickers twice and ended in a harrowing midnight escape when he rolled off the truck containing bodies of fellow migrants he had been sent to help bury.

Ahmad is now safe in a transit centre in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, just a few short days away from the trip back home and being reunited with his family as part of a collaboration between UNICEF, the International Organization for Migration and the Ethiopian Government.

The lure of migration

Children play ping pong in the courtyard of the transit centre where they await their return to their families after failed attempts to migrate. A joint project between UNICEF, the International Organization of Migration and the Ethiopian Government, the transit centre reunites migrant children with their families. © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Mulugeta Ayene

Thousands of Ethiopians leave the country searching for opportunities, with many heading for oil-rich Saudi Arabia via the Red Sea port of Djibouti and through Yemen, which is currently deeply embroiled in a civil war.

Many are preyed upon by human traffickers who often leave them stranded, or worse hold them for ransom. Many who make the trip are minors left stranded far from home.

UNICEF and the IOM have begun bringing these children back to Ethiopia and housing them for a week in the Addis Ababa transit centre while their families are contacted.

“Most of them have travelled through very harsh circumstances, some were robbed and they all went long days without food,” said centre director Mohammed Farah who just last week sent almost hundred children back to their homes. “Most of them are traumatized.”

The children are given new clothes, showers and counselling to try to overcome some of the experiences they have been through.

Many are at first uncommunicative but with time and group therapy they begin to interact with their peers, said Farah.

The centre helped bring home 598 children in 2015 and already in the first few months of 2016 it has sent another 157 to their families, including 10 girls. Families receive a 1,000 birr (US$50) resettling aid as well.

Most of the children helped by the programme are between 15 and 17 years-old but there are cases of even younger children caught up in the lure to immigrate.

The IOM-UNICEF partnership to bring these children back to their families has been singled out by the UNICEF Eastern and Southern Africa Regional office as a success story.

Coping with the trauma

Kabir, 16, looks out the window of the transit center in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where he awaits the journey back to his family that he hasn’t seen for the past five months. The joint project between UNICEF, the International Organization of Migration and the Ethiopian Government reunites children migrants with their families. © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Mulugeta Ayene

Sitting in the clean, white-washed activities room, Zerihun*, 17, talked about being ransomed by traffickers in Yemen and beaten repeatedly when his family couldn’t provide the money.

“They beat me until I became really sick and then they thought I would die so they left me outside,” he recalled, admitting that he still has trouble sleeping from the trauma. In the end, he survived the terrible experience and was able to run off into the desert and find a Yemeni village. There, he received assistance that eventually put him in contact with the IOM, enabling him to return home.

Some migrant children at the centre said they left for Saudi Arabia because they had seen many others go and thought it was a chance to make something of their lives  and return with money.

Kabir*, just 16-year-old, thought he could use his skills as a herder and help manage the massive herds of sheep and goats imported into Saudi Arabia annually for the Muslim feasts, but he too just ended up ransomed by traffickers who had hired Ethiopians to communicate – and beat – their prisoners.

He said when he returned home, he would be sure to warn others about the perils of migration.

“I want to restart my education and help my family,” said Kabir. “It is death if you go there – it is better to transform oneself and thrive inside your own country, that’s what I would tell them.”

*Names changed to protect the children’s identities.

A mother feeds a her malnourished child a Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), a high protein and high energy peanut-based paste, in Arsi zone, Oromia, Ethiopia. In Ethiopia, after two years of erratic rainfall and drought, one of the most powerful El Niño weather events for 50 years is wreaking havoc on lives and livelihoods. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Ayene

ADDIS ABABA, 22 April 2016 – Today, UNICEF thanked donors for their generous contributions and the Government for its strong leadership, which together have enabled a concerted response to the current El Niño driven drought in Ethiopia, particularly in treating children with severe malnutrition.

With support from donors, UNICEF has procured 543,631 cartons of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), which represents 22 per cent of the global order for 2015 and is one of the largest single purchases in UNICEF’s history. The donors include the Governments of Canada, Germany, Japan, Sweden, United Kingdom and United States and partners including ECHO and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

To date in 2016, UNICEF procured in 2015 a further 73,344 cartons of RUTF out of a global procurement estimated at 565,623 cartons, which corresponds to 13 per cent of the global supply. In addition to RUTF, other supplies including therapeutic milk, routine drugs and hygiene and sanitation commodities have been procured as part of the drought response. To accommodate this large volume of supplies and enhance preparedness for the drought response, UNICEF rented a new warehouse in the Gerji area of Addis Ababa, earlier this year.

“On behalf of the Government of Ethiopia and UNICEF, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the humanitarian donors for their timely and generous financial contributions to purchase Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food that will save the lives of millions of children diagnosed with severe malnutrition,” said Ms Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia. “I would also like to especially thank the Ethiopian Customs Authority, the Ethiopian Food Medicine and Health Care Administration and Akakas Logistics, this enormous supply chain operation would not have been possible without their active support. By accelerating our joint nutrition interventions, we can transform the lives of millions of children to become healthy citizens and reach their full potential.”

Ethiopia is experiencing one of the worst droughts in decades due to El Niño weather condition which continues to wreak havoc on the lives of children and their families’ livelihoods. According to the latest Humanitarian Requirement Document issued this year, 6 million children are at risk from hunger, disease and lack of water. Malnutrition rates have greatly increased – 450,000 children are expected to be treated for severe acute malnutrition (SAM) this year.

Inauguration of new UNICEF warehouse (L-R) Ms Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia, Dr Kebede Worku, State Minister of the Federal Ministry of Health, and Ms. Emma William, Deputy Head, DFID Ethiopia ©UNICEf Ethiopia/2016/Tsegaye

//embedr.flickr.com/assets/client-code.jsAs part of the joint drought response coordinated by the Government, UNICEF is leading the Nutrition, Water Sanitation Hygiene, Education (together with Save the Children) clusters and the Child Protection sub-cluster. Together with other partners, UNICEF implements life-saving humanitarian responses including procurement and supply of therapeutic food and milk, drugs, other medical supplies, plus water/sanitation and education and child protection supplies.

UNICEF also supports the treatment of severely malnourished children through the community-based management of acute malnutrition, with training, quality assurance and coordination with other partners. Regular nutrition screening helps ensure that malnutrition in children is diagnosed and treated early, thereby reducing cases of severe acute malnutrition and life-threatening complications.

The supply of RUTF procured by UNICEF to date to respond to the current emergency is worth US$28 million including freight and in-country distribution. With the continued effort of the Government and support from humanitarian actors, 350,451 children were treated for severe acute malnutrition in 2015.

Mr Thomas Silberhorn, Deputy Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) announces a 10-million-euro contribution to save the lives and protect livelihoods of vulnerable households affected by the El Niño-driven drought in Ethiopia at the UNICEF Warehouse in Gerji, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Tsegaye

21 April, 2016:  Mr Thomas Silberhorn, the German Deputy Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development announced a contribution of 10 million euro to save lives and protect the livelihoods of vulnerable households affected by the El Niño-driven drought in Ethiopia.

Due to the drought, 10.2 million people, 6 million of them children, are in need of food assistance, while 5.8 million people require access to clean drinking water and hygiene and sanitation facilities throughout 2016.

In 2015, the Government of Germany contributed 10 million euro to UNICEF for the drought emergency response in the areas of Health, Nutrition, and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene.

During a visit to a UNICEF warehouse in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Mr Silberhorn said, “We would like to commend the Federal Government of Ethiopia for the well-coordinated response to the drought emergency. The Government’s timely call for early action has paved the way for a coordinated approach implemented by the Government and the international partners.” The Deputy Minister added, “I am pleased to announce that Germany’s cooperation with UNICEF will continue and that the German Government will provide additional funding amounting to 10 million euro to continue the drought emergency support, bringing the support to UNICEF’s work in the drought-affected areas to a total of 20 million euro.”

With this new funding from the German Government, an estimated 1 million people in drought-affected areas will benefit from improved health services, 240,000 people will have access to water supply, and 36,000 children with severe acute malnutrition will be provided with therapeutic food.

UNICEF, the Nutrition cluster lead, provides supplies for the management of severe acute malnutrition and supports the treatment of malnourished children through the community-based management of acute malnutrition, along with training, quality assurance and coordination with other partners.

UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia, Ms. Gillian Mellsop, thanked the German Government for its generous support to UNICEF’s multi-sectoral drought response, saying, “This timely support will, among other things, enable the country’s strong primary health care system to continue identifying and treating malnourished children. This emergency nutrition intervention also ensures that the drought will not result in lifelong developmental consequences for a generation of children and will not reverse Ethiopia’s hard-earned development progress.”

By Samuel Godfrey

An ongoing UNICEF supported borehole drill in Musle Kebele of Kore Woreda. The borehole drilling site was identified through combined remote sensing technology with conventional methodologies (hydrogeology and geophysics). © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Ayene

Ethiopia is in the middle of an El Nino induced drought which has left 5.8 million people across the country without access to adequate water. More than 220 districts of Ethiopia are facing water related emergencies that arise due to either a lack of availability or quality of water.

As the WASH cluster lead, UNICEF supports the Government of Ethiopia and other partners in the rehabilitation, maintenance and construction of new water supply systems, provision of water purification and treatment chemicals, scaling up of water trucking activities, and provision of sanitation and hygiene facilities in schools. In addition, UNICEF is exploring innovative ways to use satellites to detect deep groundwater for large scale, multiple-village water supply systems. As part of the overall drought emergency response, UNICEF supports programmes in child protection, education, health and nutrition.

Groundwater, compared to rivers/lakes or other surface water, supplies 80 percent of all drinking water in Ethiopia. Water from the groundwater aquifers supports emergency water supply, urban water supply and livestock watering. With limited rains, many of these shallow groundwater wells have run dry and these communities rely on expensive commercial trucks to haul in water.

The more sustainable groundwater is located at extremely deep depths. In some cases, more than 300 metres below the ground which is the equivalent in height of the Empire State Building. To locate water that deep and then to drill and extract it is a major challenge.

Satellite image of Afar Elidar woreda potential drilling sites

To tackle this problem, the European Union and UNICEF have selected 9 of the worst affected districts across Ethiopia to use ‘satellite’ technology to locate groundwater. The EU Joint Research Centre (JRC) are providing their expertise by availing ‘no cost’ satellite images which depict the physical and topographical characteristics of the districts from satellites 100s of KM in the sky. These are then combined by UNICEF hydrogeology experts to locate appropriate sites for the drilling of essential deepwells for drought affected communities.

Results to date are extremely encouraging that it should be expanded to a larger scale of the country. On a recent visit to a well sited using this technique in Afar, the UNICEF Executive Director, Anthony Lake said “This approach is very cost-effective, compared to delivering water by truck. Indeed, every permanent well costs the equivalent of only three deliveries of water by truck.”

Mr. Lake added “This is only the beginning. With our partners in the European Union and the Government of Ethiopia we are expanding this effort through out the country, distributing water to villages, schools, health centres and cattle troughs.”

UNICEF would like to express its thanks to the European Union Delegation and the EU-JRC, for their establishment of a remote sensing partnership with UNICEF and providing the un-reserved support so far, which we believe to be strengthen and extended further in the future.

Innovative approaches like these are already showing results for boys and girls in the hard to reach areas of Ethiopia.

Dr. Samuel Godfrey is Chief of WASH for UNICEF Ethiopia, and has a PhD and MSc in Civil Engineering and Water and Waste Engineering.

Mundene, 21, breastfeeds her two-month-old baby Melesech at the Gedebe Health Post in Halaba Special Woreda (district) in SNNP Region. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Ayene

GENEVA/NEW YORK/ADDIS ABABA, 9 May 2016 – A new report by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, and the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) reveals the status of national laws to protect and promote breastfeeding.

Of the 194 countries analysed in the report, 135 have in place some form of legal measure related to the International Code of Marketing of Breast-Milk Substitutes and subsequent, relevant resolutions adopted by the World Health Assembly (the Code). This is up from 103 in 2011, when the last WHO analysis was done. However, only 39 countries have laws that enact all provisions of the Code—a slight increase from 37 in 2011. 

WHO and UNICEF recommend that babies are fed nothing but breast milk for their first 6 months, after which they should continue breastfeeding—as well as eating other safe and nutritionally adequate foods—until 2 years of age or beyond. In that context, WHO Member States have committed to increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months of life to at least 50 per cent by 2025 as one of a set of global nutrition targets.

The Code calls on countries to protect breastfeeding by stopping the inappropriate marketing of breast-milk substitutes (including infant formula), feeding bottles and teats. It also aims to and ensure breast-milk substitutes are used safely when they are necessary. It bans all forms of promotion of substitutes—including advertising, gifts to health workers and distribution of free samples. In addition, labels cannot make nutritional and health claims or include images that idealize infant formula. They must include clear instructions on how to use the product and carry messages about the superiority of breastfeeding over formula and the risks of not breastfeeding. 

“It is encouraging to see more countries pass laws to protect and promote breastfeeding, but there are still far too many places where mothers are inundated with incorrect and biased information through advertising and unsubstantiated health claims.

This can distort parents’ perceptions and undermine their confidence in breastfeeding, with the result that far too many children miss out on its many benefits,” says Dr Francesco Branca, Director of WHO’s Department of Nutrition for Health and Development. The breast-milk substitute business is a big one, with annual sales amounting to almost US$45 billion worldwide. This is projected to rise by over 55 per cent to US$70 billion by 2019. 

“The breast-milk substitutes industry is strong and growing, and so the battle to increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding around the world is an uphill one—but it is one that is worth the effort,” says UNICEF Chief of Nutrition Werner Schultink. “Mothers deserve a chance to get the correct information: that they have readily available the means to protect the health and wellbeing their children. Clever marketing should not be allowed to fudge the truth that there is no equal substitute for a mother’s own milk.” 

Click to see breastfeeding photos

Overall, richer countries lag behind poorer ones. The proportion of countries with comprehensive legislation in line with the Code is highest in the WHO South-East Asia Region (36 per cent – 4 out of 11 countries), followed by the WHO African Region (30% – 14 out of 47 countries) and the WHO Eastern Mediterranean Region (29 per cent – 6 out of 21 countries). The WHO Region of the Americas (23 per cent – 8 out of 35 countries); Western Pacific Region (15 per cent – 4 out of 27 countries); and European Region (6 per cent – 3 out of 53 countries) have lower proportions of countries with comprehensive legislation.

•  Among the countries that have any laws on marketing of breast-milk substitutes, globally:
• Just over half sufficiently prohibit advertising and promotion.
• Fewer than half prohibit the provision to health facilities of free or low-cost supplies of breast-milk substitutes.
• Just over half prohibit gifts to health workers or members of their families.
• The scope of products to which legislation applies remains limited. Many countries’ laws cover infant formula and ‘follow-up formula’, but only one third explicitly cover products intended for children aged 1 year and up.
• Fewer than half of countries ban nutrition and health claims on designated products.

 IBFAN, with its International Code Documentation Centre (ICDC) taking the lead, has closely cooperated with WHO and UNICEF to prepare this report. The results are in line with the findings reported in ICDC’s own State of the Code 2016.

“IBFAN hopes that the report will lead more countries to improve and enforce existing legislation so that breastfeeding will have a better chance and save more lives,” says Annelies Allain, Director of IBFAN’s ICDC. “Legislation needs to keep pace with new marketing strategies and this report will help policy makers to do so.”

The report, Marketing of breast-milk substitutes: International implementation of the International Code – Status report 2016, includes tables showing, country by country, which Code measures have and have not been enacted into law. It also includes case studies on countries that have strengthened their laws or monitoring systems for the Code in recent years. These include Armenia, Botswana, India and Viet Nam.

 Monitoring is essential to enforcement

Monitoring is essential to detect violations and report them to the appropriate authorities so they can intervene and stop such activities. Yet, only 32 countries report having a monitoring mechanism in place, and of those, few are fully functional. Among the countries with a formal monitoring mechanism, fewer than half publish the results, and just six countries have dedicated budgets or funding for monitoring and enforcement.

WHO and UNICEF have recently established a Global Network for Monitoring and Support for Implementation of the Code (NetCode) to help strengthen countries’ and civil society capacity to monitor and effectively enforce Code laws. Key NGOs, including IBFAN, Helen Keller International and Save the Children, academic centres and selected countries have joined this network. 

Why breastfeed?

Globally, nearly two out of three infants are not exclusively breastfed for the recommended 6 months—a rate that has not improved in two decades. Breast milk is the ideal food for infants. It is safe, clean and contains antibodies which help protect against many common childhood illnesses. Breastfed children perform better on intelligence tests, are less likely to be overweight or obese and less prone to diabetes later in life. Women who breastfeed also have a reduced risk of breast and ovarian cancers. Inappropriate marketing of breast-milk substitutes continues to undermine efforts to improve breastfeeding rates and duration worldwide.

New analyses have revealed that increasing breastfeeding to near-universal levels could save the lives of more than 820 000 children under the age of five and 20 000 women each year. It could also add an estimated US$300 billion into the global economy annually, based on improvements in cognitive ability if every infant was breastfed until at least 6 months of age and their expected increased earnings later in life. Boosting breastfeeding rates would significantly reduce costs to families and governments for treatment of childhood illnesses such as pneumonia, diarrhoea and asthma.

In Ethiopia

Tena Esubalew Health Extension Worker comes to Etenesh Belay’s house for counselling on breast feeding practices Amhara region of Ethiopia. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2014/Tsegaye

Food, Medicine and Healthcare Administration and Control Authority (FMHACA) is mandated by the proclamation of 661/2009 for the regulation of food safety and quality in the country. The authority has thereby issued a directive for the control of the promotion of infant, follow up formula and complementary foods by making sure of the safety, quality, nutritional value and promotion of the products. The registration of infant and follow up formula is one of the major requirements before getting its market authorization which helps for close control and monitoring of the products. The authority has already started the enforcement and monitoring of implementation of these activities.

 Although most women in Ethiopia breastfeed (96 per cent) their children up to the age of one year, only 52 per cent of children under 6 months are exclusively breastfed.^[1] The promotion of breast-milk substitutes with increasing urbanization and changes in societal norms, creates a threat to breastfeeding by confusing mothers and families about the best possible feeding choices for their infants and young children.^[2]  Poor breastfeeding practices can contribute to failure to grow and to thrive in children, a wide-spread problem in Ethiopia, affecting 40 per cent of children who are stunted^[1]. 

^[1]Ethiopian Demographic and Health Survey (EDHS) 2011

^[2] Howard C., Howard F., Lawrence R., Andresen E., DeBlieck E. & Weitzman M. (2000) Office prenatal formula advertising and its effect on breast-feeding patterns. Obstetrics & Gynecology 95, 296–303.

By Paul Schemm

Ababa Abraha had to leave school to work when her family ran out of food amid a severe drought. © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Hema Balasundaram

When the drought came to the remote kebele (sub-district) of Gonka, Ababa Abraha’s family held out as long as they could, in their picturesque village set among the sharp mountain peaks and deep valleys of the Tigray Region.

With no crops and food, however, they finally had to leave to find temporary work in nearby towns and pulled 14-year-old Ababa out of Grade 7 to work as a house cleaner.

Then came word that there was water being supplied and a Government feeding programme at the Gonka Complete Primary School, a rough stone building in the village, and Ababa was allowed to return.

“I like school a lot,” said Ababa, who dreams of studying finance at university one day. “But I can’t learn without food. If there is no food, I have to work to help my family.”

Gonka Kebele, which is near the arid Afar Region, was hard hit by the drought affecting much of the country. With its two wells failing, it received a 10,000 litre-capacity water bladder that is refilled every other day by a truck that makes an arduous journey over the treacherous gravel road.

Trucking water for the hardest hit

Every other day, a truck transports 10,000 litres of water through mountainous terrain to the drought-affected community in remote Gonka Kebele © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Hema Balasundaram

The current drought has rendered some 5.8 million people nationwide in need of access to safe water. As long term solutions to water scarcity are developed, the Government of Ethiopia, supported by UNICEF, has started trucking in water to the most severely drought-affected communities.

UNICEF’s 100 trucks are operating in the Afar, Amhara, Oromia, Somali, SNNP and Tigray regions and have already delivered 15 million litres of water to 300,000 people in the last month.

“It is the first of its kind, UNICEF providing full water services to beneficiaries,” said Getachew Asmare, the UNICEF Water and Sanitation Specialist in Tigray, where 110,000 people including school children have benefited from 4.6 million litres of water in one month.

In some communities, people are surviving on just 5 litres of water a day, a quarter of the Government-recommended 15 litres a day and a far cry from the 100 litres a day consumed by the average citizen of a developed country,” said Getachew.

The case of Gonka Kebele shows how water scarcity doesn’t just affect hygiene and crops but also education.

A lifeline for the school

Haftu Gebreziher, the 26-year-old director of the Gonka Complete Primary School described how he was losing students by the day before the start of UNICEF-supported water trucking and Government feeding programme. Some were spending the day walking for hours fetching water at the distant river, others couldn’t pay attention in class.

Students also complained about the difficulty of getting a drink and the lack of regular showers due to the water scarcity

“There was a drop in attendance and a rise in tardiness,” he said, estimating a 60 per cent absentee rate. “This was interfering with school but now with the water and feedings, that has stopped.”

A water truck hired by UNICEF fills a 10,000-litre water bladder next to the school. © UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Hema Balasundaram

The large yellow water bladder donated by the Government of Ireland sits right outside the school, next to the hut where the children’s midday meal is prepared. The students swarm around the water taps connected to the bladder and drink whenever they want instead of taking a long trek by foot or camel to a river in the distant valley.

The €110,000 (ETB 2.6 million) worth of donated water containers marks the latest support from Ireland, which so far has given Ethiopia €9.1 million to combat the drought. The water tanks and jerry cans will be used by UNICEF in the worst affected woredas (districts) nation-wide.

As the WASH cluster lead, UNICEF also supports the Government of Ethiopia and other partners in the rehabilitation, maintenance and construction of new water supply systems, provision of water purification and treatment chemicals, and provision of sanitation and hygiene facilities in schools. UNICEF is also exploring innovative ways to use satellites to detect deep groundwater for large scale, multiple-village water supply systems.

These efforts are helping ensure that students affected by the drought don’t have to forfeit their education. For 14-year-old Silas Hagos at Gonka Complete Primary School, this means that she can once again work towards her dream to become a pilot for the national carrier Ethiopian Airlines. When the drought came, she had to leave the eight grade to work.

She sold soap and packaged biscuits in nearby town for weeks until the feeding programme and the new water bladder allowed her to return and once again dream of flying.

“If we get the opportunity to learn, it is good – an educated person is better than an uneducated one,” she said with a smile.

By Samuel Godfrey

Mustapha and his one year old daughter Meia at Teza Wota Health Center ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2012/Getachew

The January 2016 Huffington Post article entitled Why are Indian kids smaller than Africa kids: hint its not race authored by Sanjay Wikesekera, UNICEF Global WASH Chief and Werner Shultink, UNICEF Global  Nutrition Chief, highlighted the link between child stunting[1] and lack of access to toilets. Children growing up in an environment where people are defecating in the open will result in kids crawling around on dirty floors, putting feacally contaminated material and objects in their mouths and ultimately will results in children having high rates of diarrhea which will result in their stunted physical and mental development.

To understand this better, UNICEF Ethiopia WASH team and John Hopkins University undertook a systematic review of more than 1000 peer reviewed academic articles with the aim of identifying interventions that health and WASH professionals can take or promote to reduce the contact of children with feacally contaminated material. The review identified strong evidence on the linkage between open defecation, stunting and early child development (See figure below from Ngure et al (2014).

The review also notes good knowledge of how to do hygiene and sanitation promotion to safe disposal of adult feaces but limited evidence on safe disposal of baby feaces.

UNICEF Ethiopia is using the review to design specific Baby WASH interventions that can complement our current Infant Young Child Feeding programmes. Ethiopia has substantially reduced Open Defecation during the last 25 years. In 1990, an estimated 9 out of 10 people were “pooing” in the open and by 2015, this had reduced by 64 per cent to less than 1 in 3 people. However, despite this progress, almost half of children were recorded as ‘stunted’ or not achieving their full physical and mental growth by 2015. The literature suggests that Baby WASH, as we have termed it, may be one of the key “missing pieces” in reducing stunting. Baby WASH comprises of a ‘menu’ of physical and promotions activities which will reduce the exposure of the BABY to ingestion of feaces and ultimately reduce stunting and improve Early Childhood Development.

Watch this space for more details on field evidence on Baby WASH from UNICEF Ethiopia as we work closely with the Government of Ethiopia and development partners to expand this intervention throughout Ethiopia in our new Country Programme of Cooperation between 2016 and 2020. For the time being, UNICEF Ethiopia is using its own financial core resources. Interested development partners are welcome to join this groundbreaking initiative.

UNICEF Ethiopia is collaborating with the US based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Department of International Health, Program in Global Disease Epidemiology and Control. A researcher from the school was an intern in the UNICEF Ethiopia WASH section in 2015 and has collaborated with the WASH section on producing a paper entitled Evidence on Interventions Targeted at Reducing Unsafe Disposal of Child Feaces: A Systematic Review.

UNICEF Ethiopia’s rural wash activities are supported by the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the Government of Netherlands, the Government of Canada and the UNICEF National Committees from Germany, UK and New Zealand.

Dr. Samuel Godfrey is Chief of WASH for UNICEF Ethiopia, and has a PhD and MSc in Civil Engineering and Water and Waste Engineering.

[1] Stunting is a sign of ‘shortness’ and develops over a long period of time. In children and adults, it is measured through the height-for-age nutritional index. In Ethiopia approximately 40 per cent of children are stunted.

By Bethlehem Kiros

AMHARA REGION, Ethiopia, February 2016 – Moyanesh Almerew, a Health Extension Worker in Arara Kidanemeheret Kebele (sub-district) in Amhara Region can testify to how bad the current drought in Ethiopia is for children. She is one of thousands employed as part of the nationwide Health Extension Programme, a community-based programme bringing basic health services to the doorstep of Ethiopia’s large, rural population. According to Moyanesh, they have had seen many more cases of severe acute malnutrition among children this year as compared to previous years and the cases they are receiving are worse. Among them, six-month-old, Fikir, whom Moyanesh saw during a home visit, stands out.

“You would not believe how thin she was when we first found her,” recounts Moyanesh, “She had never been vaccinated so when we tried to give her the vaccines, it was not possible because she was only skin and bones,” explains Moyanesh. When she was first brought to the Arara Kidanemeheret Health Post, the child weighed just 4.5 kg and the measurement of her mid-upper arm circumference – the criteria for identifying severe malnutrition – was 10.5 cm. She was severely acutely malnourished.

Thankfully, after receiving treatment, Fikir has gained 2kg after treatment, which included medicine and therapeutic food for several weeks, and her mid-upper arm circumference grew to 11.8 cm, which puts her in the moderately acutely malnourished range. She continues to receive outpatient treatment at the health post.

Moderately acutely malnourished children are enrolled in the World Food Programme-supported Targeted Supplementary Feeding programme through which they receive fortified blended food and vegetable oil for six months to aid their nutritional recovery. Both this and the UNICEF-supported treatment for severe acute malnutrition are routine responses which are all the more critical in a crisis.

Weynitu Demissie (far left) walks a long distance to get to Arara Kidanemeheret Health Post where she receives therapeutic food for her seven-month-old malnourished daughter, Mastewal. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Nahom Tesfaye

Seven-month-old Mastewal is another child who has been treated at the Arara Kidanemeheret Health Post. Her mother, Weynitu, says that the drought has taken quite a toll on her family, especially on Mastewal. The child was extremely emaciated before receiving treatment for severe acute malnutrition. Weynitu walks for more than two hours over steep hilly ground to get to the health post for Mastewal’s treatment but she says it is worth all the hardship since her daughter has shown a lot of progress in the last few of months.

To Moyanesh, it is a relief to see the wonders that therapeutic food treatment does for the children. “I doubt that some of these children would have survived if they didn’t receive this treatment,” she says.

Across the country, 458,000 children are expected to need treatment for severe acute malnutrition in 2016. More broadly, 10.2 million people, 6 million of them children, are in need of emergency food assistance due to the drought. UNICEF, the Nutrition sector lead agency, continues to coordinate the nutrition emergency response. With the support of donors, UNICEF provides supplies for the management of severe acute malnutrition and supports the treatment of malnourished children through the community-based management of acute malnutrition, along with training, quality assurance and monitoring of the nutrition emergency response. UNICEF is also supporting efforts to provide drought-affected communities with access to clean water and health services to address major causes of child illnesses and deaths that have been exacerbated by the drought.

To continue nutrition emergency response activities over the coming months, additional funds of US$5 million are needed, subject to needs-based revisions. A further US$ 42 million is needed over the next four years to strengthen nutrition services and build resilience to future shocks among communities that are worst-affected by the drought.

By Sacha Westerbeek

The theme for this year’s Day of the African Child – Conflict & Crisis: Protecting Children’s Rights – is a pertinent one.

South Sudan refugee children play at a child – friendly space at Tierkidi camp in Gambela region of Ethiopia 9 June 2016 ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Ayene

UNICEF estimates that nearly 90 million children under the age of 7 have spent their entire lives in conflict zones. Children living in conflict are often exposed to extreme trauma, putting them at risk of living in a state of toxic stress, a condition that inhibits brain cell connections – with significant life-long consequences to their cognitive, social and physical development. In addition to the immediate physical threats that children in crises face, they are also at risk of deep-rooted emotional scars.

Conflict robs children of their safety, family and friends, play and routine. Yet these are all elements of childhood that give children the best possible chance of developing fully and learning effectively, enabling them to contribute to their economies and societies, and building strong and safe communities when they reach adulthood.

As in all humanitarian crises, children continue to bear the brunt of the impact. It is estimated that three out of 10 African children are living in conflict-affected areas.

Children do not start wars…. We know that. –  Yet they are most vulnerable to their deadly effects. Armed conflict kills and maims children, disrupts their education, denies them access to essential health services, increases poverty, malnutrition and disease. Conflict can also separate children from their parents, or force them to flee their homes, witness atrocities or even perpetrate war crimes themselves.

Children are always among the first affected by conflict, whether directly or indirectly. Armed conflict affects their lives in many ways, and even if they are not killed or injured, they can be orphaned, abducted, raped and left with deep emotional scars and trauma from direct exposure to violence or from dislocation, poverty, or the loss of loved ones.

In addition to conflicts, Africa faces a huge burden of natural disasters and disease outbreaks – like Ebola, which have an equally heavy impact on children’s lives. Climate change is increasingly recognised as one of the biggest threats to children globally and in Africa. For example, the El Nino weather phenomenon, felt strongly here in Ethiopia, is exacerbating flooding and droughts, and worsening food crises across the Continent.

Last year, UNICEF responded to 141 humanitarian situations of varying scale in sub-Saharan Africa. We are working with governments, partners and communities to ensure that children’s rights are protected even in the most difficult of situations.

UNICEF is also continuing to invest in disaster-risk reduction, early preparedness and efforts to strengthen the resilience of children and their communities so that the impact of any future crises can be reduced.

But of course, what we ultimately need is greater political will to end conflicts in Africa and to ensure that children’s rights are protected even during times of humanitarian crises.

In preparation for this year’s Day of the African Child, UNICEF used an innovative messaging tool called U-Report to ask children if they think their leaders are doing enough to end conflicts and crises in Africa. The top message was that children don’t think that their leaders were doing enough. We also surveyed the children who participated in the pre-session and They came up with some very smart suggestions on what political leaders – including the Chairperson of the African Union – can do to stop conflict and crises in Africa.

Today’s commemoration of the Day of the African Child is a critical step in galvanising political support for the protection of children’s rights during conflicts and crises, and for holding state and non-state actors accountable when rights are violated.

So we must listen carefully to what the children today tell us. About how conflicts and crises are affecting their lives and what needs to be done to ensure their rights are fully realised. We know they have the answers. It is then our duty to share these messages with the people in power and push for action to be taken.

Day of the African Child is celebrated at Jewi Refugee camp – Gambella, Ethiopia By the African Union, Government of Ethiopia, UN and NGO’s in the presence of refugee children and their families

              The Government avails US$ 5.7 million to UNICEF’s drought response activities

New cartons of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF) arrives at a UNICEF warehouse

ADDIS ABABA, 22 June 2016 -The Government of Sweden contributes US$ 5.7 million to UNICEF to save children’s lives and protect children affected by El Niño-driven drought in Ethiopia. This is the single largest crisis contribution of Sweden to UNICEF globally this year. In addition to the grant provided through UNICEF Ethiopia, Sweden has provided US$25 million to the drought response in Ethiopia since September 2015.

The Swedish support comes at a critical time when Ethiopia is currently facing the worst drought in decades leaving 10.2 million people, including 6 million children, in need of emergency assistance. It also created critical water shortages in Somali, Afar, parts of SNNP, eastern Oromia, Amhara and Tigray regions.  Poor sanitation and hygiene conditions, resulting from water shortage, are also contributing to an increase in disease outbreaks. 

In addition, the number of severely malnourished children who need therapeutic feeding treatment continues to increase. UNICEF, together with the Government of Ethiopia and humanitarian partners, is stepping up efforts to address the needs of 458,000 children under five with Severe Acute Malnutrition and 2.5 million children, pregnant and lactating women with Moderate Acute Malnutrition.^[1]

“Sweden has been a strong humanitarian and development partner to Ethiopia over the years. We are very committed to support the country in the struggle to combat and prevent the effects of the worst drought Ethiopia has seen in over 50 years,” said H.E. Jan Sadek, Ambassador of Sweden to Ethiopia. “Sweden is determined to continue to work for a deeper integration between humanitarian relief and long term development objectives. The partners in Ethiopia have come quite far in this integration but more needs to be done. We believe that in this regard, UNICEF, which has a mandate in both ‘spheres’, is playing a key role.”

Together with other donors, Sweden’s support enabled UNICEF to make the largest global purchase of Therapeutic Food for children in drought-stricken Ethiopia. With this new funding, UNICEF will work towards improving the capacity of health extension workers on Severe Acute Malnutrition management.

In addition, new stabilization centres will be established in existing health centres to cater to the increasing number of children with severe acute malnutrition.  The contribution will also strengthen Mobile Health and Nutrition Teams which provide lifesaving primary health care, nutrition, hygiene and sanitation promotion services in hard hit drought areas of the Afar and Somali regions. Furthermore, water will be provided to primary schools for drinking as well as for routine handwashing in the Oromia Region.

“UNICEF appreciates the Government of Sweden’s generous contribution of life saving interventions for children and their families whose lives have been affected by the El-Niño driven drought emergency,” said Ms Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia. “UNICEF, together with the Government of Ethiopia and partners, continues to play an important role in scaling up its interventions in terms of nutrition, health, water sanitation and hygiene, child protection and education to mitigate the worst impact of this crisis.”

By Samuel Godfrey and Michele Paba 

(LR) Ms.Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia, Ato Kebede Gerba State Minister MOWIE, Octavio Henrique Cortes Brazilian Ambassador to Ethiopia. Signed a trilateral program document to cooperate on WASH under South-South initiative. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Tesfaye

In the effort to improve delivery of essential services to women and children, South-South cooperation provides a platform for lower income countries to learn from middle income countries that have recently addressed developmental challenges similar to their own. Ethiopia’s aspiration to reach middle income status by 2020 means that its five-year Growth and Transformation Plan II is heavily reliant on exploring the economic and social development models of China, Brazil, Cuba and other Latin American Nations.

The need to address rapidly urbanizing small and medium sized towns is central to Ethiopia’s growth. UNICEF in its new Country Programme (2016-2020) has identified urbanization as one of the key challenges being faced by women and children. How do lower income households get access to equitable and affordable services such as health care, education, water supply and sanitation? How will the rights of out-of-school children in urban areas be protected?

To answer some of these questions, UNICEF Ethiopia has supported the South-South partnerships between the Government of Ethiopia and the Governments of Brazil and Cuba in two strategic areas, Urban Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and Integrated Water Resource Management.

The cooperation initiative with Brazil was initiated in 2014 with the support of UNICEF Ethiopia and Brazil Country Offices and the UK Government, under the ONEWASH Plus Programme, with the aim of supporting the water and sanitation sector in Ethiopia in two key pillars, namely, the development of the sanitation sector in towns, with particular focus on technology transfer for the treatment of waste water generated by densely populated housing facilities such as condominiums, and the establishment of an independent regulatory framework for WASH services at all levels.

Given the extensive experience of the Cuban Government in river basin and water resource management, the recently established collaboration with the Ethiopian authorities, supported by UNICEF and the US Government, will definitively generate great impacts on the watershed management plans and riverine resources conservation initiatives across the country.

The two South-South initiatives were reviewed, through a consultative workshop held in Addis Ababa on 26 May 2016, by high level officials from the Ministry of Water Irrigation and Electricity, the Embassies of Brazil and Cuba, UNICEF as well as other sector institutions and development partners including  the UK and US Governments. The workshop culminated in the signing of the three-year project document between Ethiopia and Brazil. Together, the partnerships with Brazil and Cuba will help Ethiopia strengthen the WASH sector to be able to better deliver services for children and communities.

UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia, Ms Gillian Mellsop, State Minister of Water Irrigation and Energy, Ato Kebede Gerba and Brazilian Ambassador to Ethiopia, Octavio Henrique Cortes after signing a trilateral project document for WASH sector cooperation under a South-South initiative.

During the event, the State Minister of Water Irrigation and Energy, H.E. Ato Kebede Gerba, underlined the importance of the integration of different forms of cooperation, both North-South and South-South, in order for the sector in Ethiopia to get the required exposure and learning from different experiences and practices.

Dr. Samuel Godfrey is Chief of WASH and Michele Paba a WASH Specialist at UNICEF Ethiopia

By Wossen Mulatu

25-year-old Nyatayin with her one year old daughter Nyakoch Gatdet at a temporary shelter for returned children in Gambella. ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Mersha

GAMBELLA, Ethiopia, 25 May 2016 – When the attack on the village came, 25-year-old Nyatayin Both held tightly to two of her children, but the raiders still managed to kidnap the two others amidst the panic and commotion.

“I wish I’d had four hands to hold them and save all of my four children,” she recalled, describing the horrific day in mid-April in Ethiopia’s Gambella region when she lost her 9-year-old daughter and 4-year-old son.

In a raid of unprecedented scale, some 200 people were killed and 146 children were taken by raiders from neighboring South Sudan, widely described as Murle tribesmen. The Ethiopian military and the local Gambella Government have been negotiating for their slow release ever since.

For Nyatayin, it meant a miracle to see the return of her 9-year-old daughter Nyamuoch.

“At first it was just rumors that some of the children had returned, but later we were told by local officials to come and identify our children,” she said. “I was hoping to see mine, when I spotted my daughter among the many children standing in a circle, I was thrilled and praised the Lord and thanked the government for taking action.”

It was a joy tempered by the fact that her other son was still out there and of course the death of so many relatives that day, including her husband. So far 91 children have been recovered.

UNICEF is working closely with the Government of Ethiopia and partners on a response plan which includes reintegration, psychological support, basic health care and nutrition services as well as providing tents and clothing for each child.

Currently, the children are being cared for at a two-storey guest house of the Gambella Regional Government, where Sarah Nyauony Deng is supervising their care.

“When they arrive here, most of them were so silent and isolated themselves, but after some time, they start to socialize with others, play together and become cheerful,” she said. “Most of them also have injuries on their legs from the long walks.”

Nyamuoch Gatdet, 9 years, was one of the 146 children who were abducted from their communities in the Gambella Region ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Mersha

Flashbacks from the forest
Nyamuoch recalls that terrible day she was taken from her village that began at dawn with the sound of shots.

“I was still asleep and suddenly I heard gunfire and ran out of the house. I was filled with fear and anxiety,” she said. “I started running along with many other children and adults but they caught most of us and took us to a forest. Where I was, most of the abducted children were strangers except a boy I recognized from my village.”

Nyamuoch said they were constantly talking to them but none of the children understood a word. “I think they were trying to teach us their language,” she said. “I am so happy to be back to my family. My mother and I cried for a long time with happiness and now she is with me again, I am not scared anymore.”

Reintegration

Working with the president’s office and the Bureau of Women and Children Affairs, UNICEF has drawn upon a detailed action plan for child protection, including identification, documentation, psycho-social first aid and family assessments to facilitate appropriate rehabilitation services during reunification of the children.

Children in Gambella Presidential Guest House after their recovery from abduction ©UNICEF Ethiopia/2016/Tesfaye

“Currently, we are doing a needs assessment to mobilize resources for the abducted children and their families. Some of the children have lost one or both parents, some their cattle and some their huts as it was burned by the Murle,” said Ocher Ocher Obang of the Bureau of Women and Children’s Affairs in Gambella.

In addition, many in the affected communities are afraid to return to their remote villages for fear of renewed attacks by the Murle.

With the return of the rains, the displaced families need land to till, shelter to live in, as well as additional clothing and health care.

As the Ethiopian and South Sudanese governments strengthen their efforts to recover the remaining abducted children, UNICEF calls for the children’s swift and unconditional return to their families.

“I thought they would lock us in the forest forever,” said Nyamuoch. “When I grow up, I only want to do good things for humanity by becoming a teacher or a doctor – I will never forget this incident.”

By Wossen Mulatu

GAMBELLA, Ethiopia,  25 May 2016 – Eighteen years after he was kidnapped as a child by raiders, Paul Tok*, 19, came home to his native village of Dima to a warm welcome.

In the long years of his captivity by the Murle tribesmen in neighbouring South Sudan, where he was attached to a local family, forced to learn the language and help raise their cattle and farm their land, he never forgot who he was.

His brother, five years older and taken with him, repeatedly told him that they were different. “We are Anuak, we will never be Murle.”

The Murle have long raided their neighbours for cattle and children. In the last decade, 50 children have been taken from the Anuak parts of Ethiopia in Gambella State in yearly raids.

Those raids, however, sprang to international prominence when the Murle launched a massive cross border operation against 13 Nuer villages in mid-April, killing more than 200 people and carting off 146 children and thousands of cattle.

As the Ethiopian Government works to release these children, the experience of others kidnapped by the Murle has come under renewed scrutiny.

Dawn raid and captivity

Paul and his older brother were kidnapped in 1997 in a violent attack on their village. His mother fought to keep her sons and was slashed with a knife that left her weak and she died of illness four years later. Her husband followed her into the grave two years afterwards following a prolonged period of depression.

Paul would only find out about his parents death on his return years later. He and his brother were taken to the village of Lelot in South Sudan and attached to a family who already had 10 other children and was put to work.

Paul said he never liked his life with the Murle.

“I didn’t like the food, the language and the fact that we didn’t wear any clothes,” he said. “Since the Murle take pride in having lots of cattle, they gave us a lot of milk. They also gave us blood from the oxen to drink but I never dared to try it.”

“They taught us to hunt wild animals and when we failed, they would tell us we were not man enough and beat us,” he recalled. They were also beaten when they refused to join the deadly cattle raid attacks against the Anuak. ”I never collaborated with them – how could I steal from my community?”

Paul and his brother were allowed to attend school and Paul studied up to 9^th grade.

Escape and reunification

When fighting wracked South Sudan as rival tribes battled each other in a civil war during the past few years, Paul decided to join the flow of refugees into Ethiopia and make his way back to Dima.

“I told them my story in Anuak language when I was in the camp. They were so happy and they hid me and gave me food and clothing. My aunt was looking for me tirelessly and she heard about my return and came to take me,” he said with pride.

Though Paul is thrilled to be reunited with his family, he misses his brother who is still in South Sudan. “He is now in 11^th grade in Juba and he wants to finish school. We would have come together. I don’t think he will waste a day to return after he finishes school,” Paul said.

Paul is now receiving lots of affection from his own community. Along with his aunt and relatives, he gets support from the woreda (district) including clothing and school materials and has now re-enrolled. He still lives in fear, however, that the Murle will come back and take him away. “They know me as their child and I will be considered a traitor if found,” he said.

There has been a steady increase in cross-border child abduction over the past decade. The civil war in South Sudan and the easy availability of weapons has exacerbated the rate of these abductions both in terms of the numbers of children abducted and adults killed each year.

However, after the April 15 attack, the Ethiopian Government made a statement that the Ethiopian forces will follow the Murle armed men into their territories in South Sudan to rescue the abducted children.

UNICEF is working in close collaboration with the Government of Ethiopia and partners on a response plan which includes reintegration, psychological support, basic health care and nutrition services as well as providing items such as tents for their accommodation and clothing for each child.

UNICEF has called for the children’s swift and unconditional return.

“I hope they will stop abducting our children,” says Okew Owar, head of the Jor Woreda. “For the Murle, the more children they steal from us, the richer and powerful they become since children are sold and exchanged for cattle.”

After the reunification with his community, Paul wants to improve his Anuak since he has forgotten some words apart from what his brother taught him when they were children. He can now speak the Murle language fluently as well as a little Arabic.

“I would like to become a teacher and teach my community,” he said.

*Name of subject has been changed to protect privacy

In Eastern and Southern Africa alone, 26.5 million children are in need of aid

NAIROBI/NEW YORK, July 8, 2016 – The 2015-2016 El Niño has ended but its devastating impact on children is worsening, as hunger, malnutrition and disease continue to increase following the severe droughts and floods spawned by the event, one of the strongest on record, UNICEF said today.

And there is a strong chance La Niña – El Niño’s flip side – could strike at some stage this year, further exacerbating a severe humanitarian crisis that is affecting millions of children in some of the most vulnerable communities, UNICEF said in a report called It’s not over – El Niño’s impact on children.

Children in the worst affected areas are going hungry. In Eastern and Southern Africa – the worst hit regions – some 26.5 million children need support, including more than one million who need treatment for severe acute malnutrition.

In many countries, already strained resources, have reached their limits, and affected families have exhausted their coping mechanisms – such as selling off assets and skipping meals. Unless more aid is forthcoming, including urgent nutritional support for young children, decades of development progress could be eroded.

In many countries, El Niño affected access to safe water, and has been linked to increases in diseases such as dengue fever, diarrhoea and cholera, which are major killers of children. In South America, and particularly Brazil, El Niño has created favourable breeding conditions for the mosquito that can transmit Zika, dengue, yellow fever and chikungunya.  If La Niña does develop, it could contribute to the spread of the Zika virus to areas that have not been affected to date.

UNICEF also said there are serious concerns that Southern Africa, the global epicentre of the AIDS pandemic, could see an increased transmission of HIV as a result of El Niño’s impact. Lack of food affects access to anti-retroviral therapy (ART), as patients tend not to take treatment on an empty stomach, and many people will use their limited resources for food rather than transport to a health facility. Drought can also force adolescent girls and women to engage in transactional sex to survive. And, mortality for children living with HIV is two to six times higher for those who are severely malnourished than for those who are not.

“Millions of children and their communities need support in order to survive. They need help to prepare for the eventuality La Niña will exacerbate the humanitarian crisis. And they need help to step up disaster risk reduction and adaptation to climate change, which is causing more intense and more frequent extreme weather events,” said UNICEF’s Director of Emergency Programs, Afshan Khan. “The same children who are affected by El Niño and threatened by La Niña, find themselves on the frontlines of climate change.”

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia, 02 August 2016 – Today, UNICEF and major religious institutions signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to address the issues affecting children, women and the community at large through social and behaviour change, by fully engaging the spiritual wings whose extensive structure reaches families and individuals throughout the country. 

The MoU resulted from continuous joint consultations, since 2014, through identified common ground between the core values of religious institutions, UNICEF’s mandate for children and women, and the need to work towards a major shift of working from a project based partnership to a more sustained and strategic approach to promote the rights and wellbeing of children and women.

At the signing ceremony, Dr Abba Hailemariam Melese, Deputy General Manager of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church said, “The Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church pledges to take the agreed priorities forward by using its structures and hierarchies lying from the Patriarchate Office up to the parish churches by engaging over half a million clergies and religious fathers through the joint leadership of its spiritual and development wings.” 

Representing the Moslem Religion, Haji Azam Yusuf, Executive Director of the Ethiopian Moslem Development Agency, on his part said, “We sign the MoU today as part of our religious obligation to improve the lives of mothers, children and adolescents to be protected from violence and we promise to work hard towards every issue which is in harmony and does not in any way violate the basic rules and principles of our Religion – Islam. And this time, developmental partners have become wise by involving and engaging religious organizations and leaders to work for a common goal.” 

Abba Hailegabriel Meleku, representing the Ethiopian Catholic Church said, “UNICEF and religious denominations have many common elements concerning the wellbeing of children and women which binds them to work closer.  The Catholic Church affirms that every child has the right to be conceived within a family, through human act, to be born and raised within a stable and responsible family which is fundamental.”

Reverend Dr Wakseuym Idosssa, President of the Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus said, “The problems of harmful traditional practices and social injustices that women and children are facing today are still fresh and deserve our urgent response. In this regard, our congregation and preaching centres, which are over 12,000 in the entire country, will have great role to play in the areas of behavioural change and in building a loving and caring communities for the new generation.”

Currently, in Ethiopia, 3 million children are out of school, 40 per cent of under-five children are malnourished, only 7 per cent of births are formally registered, less than one third of pregnant women deliver in health facilities, vaccination is less than 70 percent coverage, and many girls are exposed to different kinds of harmful traditional practices. Moreover, disease outbreaks like Acute Watery Diarrhoea are affecting many.

“There can never be a more appropriate time for us to join forces, merge our mandate, responsibilities and moral values to enable our communities to build a world fit for children,” said Ms Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia. “I would like to reiterate UNICEF’s commitment to foster this partnership, as together, we can succeed in improving the lives of children, women and adolescents in Ethiopia. When we work jointly by promoting positive behaviour and social norms to increase demand and the provision of services, we not only bring results but also bring societal shifts, to build communities where children not only survive but thrive,” she added.

Hulluf Woldesilassie, Deputy General Secretary of Inter-Religious Council of Ethiopia said, “Inter-Religious Counsel of Ethiopia has been working on awareness creation and awakening responsibility through its national and regional platform. Through this MoU, we commit to further strengthen our commitment in a more focused and networked approach and make an impact together with other actors.”

The areas of intervention outlined in the MoU include; maternal, neonatal, child and adolescent health, immunization, Infant and Young Child Feeding (IYCF), hygiene and sanitation promotion, birth registration, Integrated Early Childhood Development and Education (IECDE), girls education, prevention of HIV/AIDS and gender based violence, ending harmful traditional practices including Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C) and child marriage.

The partnership is aimed at accelerating the joint efforts to alleviate the chronic challenges in the community by addressing them at the core – in people’s minds and attitudes.

Hereafter, all the signatories will continue to find appropriate platforms for continued discussion and deliberation for evidence based planning and implementation of interventions to benefit women and children.

Birth, death, marriage and divorce registration and certification will cover all regional states and city administrations through interventions that conform to international standards and national legislations 

ADDIS ABABA, 04 August 2016 – Today, the Government of Ethiopia announces a permanent, compulsory and universal registration and certification of vital events such as birth, death, marriage and divorce throughout the country.

H.E Dr Mulatu Teshome, President of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (FDRE), launched the inauguration of the event with other senior government officials and development partners including H.E Ms Elsa Tesfaye, Director General of Vital Events Registration Agency (VERA), H.E Mr Getachew Ambaye, Attorney General, Ms Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia, regional vital registration agencies, vital events registration national council members, development partners, the media and other invited guests. 

At the inaugural ceremony, President of the FDRE, Dr Mulatu Teshome said, “The Government of Ethiopia has given great emphasis to vital events registration across the country by putting the appropriate policies in place, establishing a system up to the lowest administrative level and deploying massive resources in this endeavour. I am confident that, with the collaboration and commitment of all stakeholders, we will succeed in the operationalization of the system, just like we have succeeded in other development sectors in the country.”

In the past, the absence of a legal framework for a national vital events registration and vital statistics system has resulted in uncoordinated practices of producing civil status evidence. For instance, birth, death and marriage certificates were issued by hospitals, churches and municipalities in an un-systematic and fragmented manner. In response to the situation, the Government of Ethiopia in 2012 adopted a comprehensive law governing the institutional and operational framework of vital events registration. This includes the registration of birth, death, marriage, divorce and complimentary notations of birth such as adoption, acknowledgment and judicial declaration of paternity.

Since the enactment of the federal law on vital events registration, the Government of Ethiopia has made great progress by establishing the Federal Vital Events Registration Agency, including a board of management and a national council. Government’s regional and city administrations also enacted regional vital events registration laws; established regional agencies and a board of management; adopted a costed national strategy; achieved national consensus to integrate vital events registration services into the health system and established administrative structures for managing and delivering registration services. 

Ms Elsa Tesfaye, Director General of Vital Events Registration Agency (VERA), said “To realize the multiple benefits of vital registration, all actors involved in the registration process, including the federal, regional, city administrators, key government stakeholders and development partners, should ensure the continuity of the system.” 

Mr Getachew Ambaye, Attorney General stated that, “The conception of modernizing the registration of vital events in Ethiopia has become a reality. From federal up to city level administration, we have finalized the preparation to start registration and certification nationwide. Now, we need to focus on the coordination and the implementation of the service through a systematic coordination to ensure the sustainability of the system.”

Vital events registration is an important pre-requisite for measuring equity, monitoring trends and, evaluating impact and outcomes of broader development programmes, such as the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

“UNICEF is very pleased to be supporting the establishment of a fully functional civil and birth registration system in Ethiopia- to count every child, and in the process, to make every child count.  We look forward to the impact of the registration and certification of vital events, such as birth and marriage on the protection and wellbeing of Ethiopian children and the general population,” said Ms Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia. 

In addition, vital events registration is essential for compiling statistics that are required to develop policies and implement services. The demographic data generated from such a system is critical for government planning and decision making. This is particularly important in areas such as child mortality, maternal health and gender equality.

Currently, all regional states and city administrations have finalized the preparations and established offices down to the lowest administrative level.‘Kebele’ general managers are acting as civil status registrars and over 94 per cent of ‘kebele’ general managers have received training regarding the fundamentals, rules, and regulations of vital events registration. In addition, the required registry and certificates are printed and distributed.

In order to undertake the registration process smoothly, various actors from government, UN and other stakeholders are playing key roles, but the community has the primary role to play by registering vital events within the prescribed time (birth within 90 days; marriage, divorce and death within 30 days).

Vital events registration will start on Saturday, 06 August 2016, across the country.

By Hanna Woldemeskel

Addis Ababa, 2 August 2016 – Ethiopia’s Leaders of major religious institutions signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with UNICEF marking their joint commitment for sustained promotion of the rights and wellbeing of children, adolescents and women through strategic behaviour and social change interventions. Fourteen signatories signed the MoU, including five major religious denominations along with their respective development offices and four umbrella institutions.

Religion is at the heart of people’s value and identity and religious leaders enormously influence moral values and socialization of children in all aspects of life. Religious institutions reach out to vulnerable and disadvantaged children and families, through their inherent values of humanity and extensive structure reaching up to the family and individual levels.

Evidence shows that if investments are made to build capacity and engage religious institutions, they can create major impact for behaviour and social norm change. For example, in the Somali region, religious leaders massively contributed to stop the 2013 polio outbreak, by informing and encouraging their communities to regularly immunize their children. Religious institutions declaring against harmful traditional practices and their active engagement has a huge impact in accelerating Ethiopia’s commitment towards eliminating the female genital mutilation/cutting and child marriage by 2025.  In Amhara region, for example when priests teach against child marriage, when they refuse to bless such unions, communities are receptive and young girls are given the opportunity to pursue their education and their dreams.

Although religious institutions have been working with UNICEF in the past, their unique opportunity for influencing positive behaviour and social norms was not fully maximized. The core purpose of the MoU, as stated by Gillian Mellsop, UNICEF Representative to Ethiopia, during the signing ceremony is “to build on existing commitments for the wellbeing of children and women in Ethiopia through sustained and long-term behaviour and social change actions with full engagement of the development and spiritual wings and umbrella institutions.” Gillian stressed, “This partnership will accelerate our efforts to alleviate chronic challenges in communities by addressing them at the core – in people’s minds and attitudes”

In their statements, all the signatory religious leaders avowed their commitment to what they called ‘Historic Consensus’  and outlined their respective faith values that create favourable grounds to promote the rights and wellbeing of children and women.

Dr. Abba Hailemariam Melese, the Deputy General Manager of the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church Patriarchate remarked “…towards this cause the Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahdo Church is ready to engage over half a million clergies and religious fathers with the joint leadership of our spiritual and development wings.” Similarly, Haji Al – Fadil Ali Mustafa, General Secretary of the Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council remarked that developmental partners have become wiser by involving and engaging religious organizations and leaders to work for a common goal.

Reverend Dr. Wakseyoum, Idosa, President of Ethiopian Evangelical Mekane Yesus Church tells the story of a girl he met a week ago who had dropped her studies from eighth grade and came to Addis Ababa fleeing forced marriage, when her relatives insisted that she returns to her village, she refused and opted to go and work in one of the Middle East countries as a house maid. “This story is one of many stories in our communities, and this is why a united effort is needed to reach to the grass roots in order to alleviate the pain that is still fresh and deserve our urgent response.”

In addition to the five major religious denominations of Ethiopian Orthodox Tewahedo Church (EOTC), Ethiopian Islamic Affairs Supreme Council (EIASC) Ethiopian Catholic Church (ECC), Ethiopian Evangelical Church Mekane Yesus (EECMY) and Ethiopian Kale Hiwot Church (EKHC) and their respective development wings, four umbrella institutions including; Inter-Religious Council of Ethiopia (IRCE),Ethiopian Interfaith Forum for Development Dialogue and Action (EIFDDA),Evangelical Churches Fellowship of Ethiopia (ECFE), and  Consortium of Evangelical Churches of Ethiopia Development Association (CECEDA) forwarded a statement affirming their commitment.