The UNICEF representative in Nigeria calls for strengthening primary care and “understanding the obligation for children to live”
29 Apr. (EUROPE PRESS) –
The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has called for “dramatically” accelerating interventions to deal with infant mortality in West Africa and the Sahel, something that involves strengthening primary care services and the prioritization of the survival of children in the face of “easily preventable” diseases.
The UNICEF representative in Nigeria, Cristian Munduate, pointed out in an interview with Europa Press within the framework of the II Global Forum on Childhood Pneumonia, held this week in Madrid, that “the northwestern region of Africa, the Sahel belt, will be left behind if the actions that must be taken in the coming years are not really accelerated, dramatically” to address the situation.
Munduate has pointed out that “2030 -the date for the Sustainable Development Goals– is just around the corner” and, although it has recognized that “the global challenges are enormous”, it has emphasized that “in Central and West Africa, the issue of child survival needs to be further accelerated”.
“This is extremely complex and is compromising the future of these countries, since in seven or eight years these children will reach adolescence and in a short period they will reach adulthood,” he said, while stressing that the international community ” must not lose hope” and must “continue to contribute” to these efforts.
Thus, it has specified that, although in several countries there are “similar situations” to those that Nigeria is going through, the case in this nation is “special” due to the amount of population. About 220 million people live in the country and about half are minors. “The same situation is going through in different countries, but here we are talking about challenges of millions and millions of children, which makes it more complicated,” he said.
“I strongly believe in the contributions of international cooperation, but it has to be complemented by equal efforts on the part of national and local actors. This is what guarantees sustainability,” he explained. In this sense, she has detailed that in Nigeria there are some 400 daily deaths of children from preventable causes, with pneumonia representing 17 percent of infant mortality in the country.
Munduate has revealed that projections for 2030 “if the performance of the countries of the world remains the same, with very little acceleration”, suggest that the infant mortality rate in Nigeria “will be above 75 per thousand births”. , which is equivalent to 7.5 percent.
POVERTY AND STRENGTHENING OF PRIMARY CARE
In this way, he has argued that this situation is “very linked” to poverty and malnutrition, which “exacerbate” the seriousness of the situation. “When there is a child who has not been vaccinated, who does not eat adequate food, who has acute malnutrition, even if they receive all the necessary hospital care, unfortunately they cannot survive,” she pointed out.
“There are studies that indicate that the more economic income improves, there is definitely a lower probability that children will die and that they will acquire these types of diseases,” he noted. Munduate has also argued that governments and societies “forgot that 15 or 20 years ago health, education and nutrition for children were seen as a child’s human right.”
“Then we focused on issues of covering needs, of giving assistance, but we never linked it to the fact that everything we do to guarantee the life of a child means guaranteeing their Human Rights,” he asserted. “It is very important that it reposition itself on the public and private agenda,” she noted, before advocating for “understanding that we are not only helping children to live, but also understanding that it is our obligation that children live and survive.”
“It is the difference between working to assist and working to guarantee a human right,” said Munduate, who has opted for “working hard from the institutional side.” “Governments have to commit more to invest in health,” she stressed. In this way, she has warned that “sometimes the priorities are placed elsewhere, without really reflecting on how the future of countries is being compromised when they do not invest in health and education.”
“Countries have to have good primary health care systems,” he pointed out. “This was left behind for different reasons. Before, there were even stronger primary care systems than the ones we have today, precisely because the investment went elsewhere,” she pointed out.
“If we are talking about health, it has been preferred to invest in large infrastructures and hospitals, because in the end the percentage of the population that receives these services is not so significant,” he said. “In some countries, having this infrastructure leads to having more supply than demand, while in primary care, where lives can be prevented and saved on time, the demand is much higher, ten or 50 times higher, than the supply that is presented. “, he pointed out.
VIOLENCE AND ‘SAFE SCHOOLS’
In another order of things, he has addressed the situation of insecurity in various areas of northern Nigeria and specifically the kidnappings after attacks on schools, a practice that has spread from the northeast – where Boko Haram and its splinter, the Islamic State, operate. in West Africa (ISWA)– to other areas plagued by criminal gangs.
Munduate has affirmed that, although the latest abductions “do not reach the magnitude” of the one registered nine years ago in Chibok, where hundreds of girls were abducted, “if one faces the count of the different kidnappings”, the figures are “impressive “. Thus, he explained that the situations “have different origins and almost the same practices”, while stressing that UNICEF’s response in the Northeast “is strongly linked to monitoring, reporting and care work for children affected by armed conflicts “.
“In the northwest of the country and now in the center, the dramatic situation is the product of common crime. They are individuals who have armed themselves and who basically use the same practices,” he explained, before pointing to a “risk of sexual abuse ” of minors in the hands of these gangs, who also recruit minors into their ranks.
Thus, he has described the situation as “quite complex”, given that “his behavior, to say the least, does not have the logic of the groups that operate in the northeast, such as ISWA and Boko Haram”. In this sense, she has stressed that in the northwest of the country there has been “a dramatic drop in girls’ access to school because families do not let them out” due to the risk of kidnapping.
In this context, he has stated that ‘safe schools’ “are mechanisms that improve the resilience of communities and schools to prevent and protect themselves a little more from these attacks”, including the installation of perimeter walls, watchtowers and “safe paths”.
“We are working more closely with the Police and the Army. We do not always have the expected results, but it is a matter of not giving up,” he said, while recalling that there are programs in place for the reintegration of demobilized minors from the ranks of armed groups.
“We have boys and girls who, when the combatant decides to lay down their arms, go out and bring their partner and their children with them. Unaccompanied adolescent boys and girls have even left,” he pointed out. “This means that, for different reasons, they were taken there or were born and raised in that context and now they are working very hard for their reinsertion,” he concluded.
