TALKING POINTS
Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration
moves forward in Afghanistan
A significant development will be taking place later today in moving the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process (DDR) in Afghanistan forward.
This afternoon at 2 o'clock here in this room the Vice Chairman of the Demobilization and Reintegration Commission, Minister Yusuf Pashtun, the Country Director of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Ercan Murat and the Special Representative of the Secretary-General, Lakhdar Brahimi will be signing the project document to provide the means for funding and managing for the Afghanistan's New Beginnings Programme (ANBP).
The ANBP is being set up by the Afghan Transitional Administration with the assistance of the international community to implement demobilization and reintegration programmes as part of security sector reforms. It will work with the Commissions to ensure a coordinated and integrated approach to DDR and to help implement commission-approved programmes in demobilization and reintegration for those who do not join the new army and the new police force. The ANBP will develop packages to ensure former officers and soldiers can successfully reintegrate back into civilian life. The packages will include vocational training, employment opportunities and access to credit to encourage entrepreneurial activities.
ANBP is a three-year programme estimated to cost 127 million US dollars. In its first year of operating the budget is set for 33 million US dollars.
Journalists are invited to attend the signing ceremony here at 2pm today and there will be a chance to ask questions about the DDR process.
[Note: The signing of the project document for the Afghanistan's New Beginnings Programme took place in the afternoon. After the signing, Minister Pashtun said: "It's a pleasure to start a long journey towards peace. I believe the instrument we just signed is a first step and a major document to start one of the most important steps of bringing peace to Afghanistan, that is disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of demobilized elements." He acknowledged it would be a difficult process but he was optimistic that it would be successful: "I can promise that the whole of the cabinet and practically 99.9 per cent of the Afghans are behind this process." The full transcript with remarks by Minister Pashtun and SRSG Brahimi will be available later.]
World Health Day - Shape the future of life: healthy environment for children
'Shape the future of life: creating a healthy environment for children' is the theme of this year's World Health Day which is tomorrow (Monday 7 April). In his message the United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan says 'healthy children are crucial to sustainable development' and he calls on the people of the world to rededicate themselves to the mission of safeguarding the health of every child.
Afghanistan has some of the worst health and nutrition indicators in the world - for example life expectancy for men is 41.1 and for women is 43.7. The Afghan Government with the support of UN agencies has taken action to strengthen the capacity of the Ministry of Public Health; to improve maternal and child health and nutrition and to carry out immunization against various diseases such as polio and measles.
Various events will be happening on World Health Day here in Afghanistan involving the Ministry of Public Health, the Ministry of Education and various UN agencies including the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF (and Eddie has more on UNICEF's plans).
There will be a ceremony at the Ministry of Public Health to mark World Health Day, a special Children's TV programme focusing on environmental health for children and a school clean-up competition among three primary schools in Kabul which will also be broadcast on TV.
We have copies of the Secretary-General's message for World Health Day as well as our UNAMA factsheet on Health and Nutrition available on the table.
Women and Constitutional Reform
A forum looking at 'Women and the Constitutional Reform Process' is being organized by UNAMA on Tuesday (8 April).
The Minister of Women's Affairs, Habiba Sorabi and the State Minister, Mahbooba Houqooqmal will address the forum on how women's rights can be advanced in the constitutional process. Women's role in the drafting of the constitution for Afghanistan will be examined. Participants will also discuss how civil society and the international community can support and strengthen women's role in this process.
Members of the Constitutional Commission, donors, representatives from non-governmental organizations and UN agencies will also be attending the forum.
Women Among First Computer Specialists Trained In Afghanistan
Six women and 11 men will graduate on 8 April from the University of Kabul's new Cisco Networking Academy, earning the first industry-standard certification for computer networking ever offered in Afghanistan.
The new academy fills a critical void for women and men alike in Afghanistan. Suffering from a severe shortage of people trained in information technology, the country was largely cut off from much of the high-tech transformation of the global community that occurred over the past two decades. This graduating class of highly trained computer specialists is the first to be trained here in their own country.
Three new classes will begin at Kabul University next month. In June, one of those classes, the first all-women's class, will be taught by women trained under the joint UNDP and Cisco Systems programme. The academy was launched jointly last October by UNDP and Cisco Systems, a leading supplier of network hardware for the Internet, to create a core of Afghan specialists who can help move the country onto the digital highway.
We have a press release at the side with more details for those of you who are interested.
Update on Restriction of Movement of UN Staff in Kandahar
The restriction on the movement of UN personnel in and out of the Kandahar area is expected to be lifted at the close of business today.
Last Thursday we told you that the restriction had been extended for a few more days in order to allow time for adequate security mechanisms to be put in place by the local authorities.
To date some 1000 troops, mostly from the Afghan National Army with some coalition forces, have been deployed in and around high-risk areas in the south. Fifty policemen from Kandahar's police force have also been placed in each of the province's 17 districts. The local Government will also send out mobile patrols to high-risk areas and is setting up security checkpoints in those areas as well.
A weekly meeting of a newly established committee - made up of representatives of local government, the UN and NGOs will now take place. This forum will assess the high-risk areas in the region and issue warning bulletins. Requests for road missions will now have to be submitted to the Committee which will review the destinations and routes to see whether the planned mission should proceed or not.
Party for Zanbil-e-Gham at the zoo
I have been asked to convey a message to you at the request of one your colleagues, Usman Akram the editor of Zanbil-e-Gham. He is inviting all of us to celebrate with him tomorrow the seventh anniversary of Zanbil-e-Gham which will be at 2pm at Kabul Zoo.
UNICEF - On World Health Day, Plight of Afghanistan's children remains cause for concern - Edward Carwardine, Communication Officer
On the occasion of World Health Day, which is celebrated on 7 April, the United Nations Children's Fund is drawing attention to the continuing health and nutritional problems faced by millions of children and women in Afghanistan.
According to UNICEF, Afghanistan ranks as the fourth worst country in the world in terms of under-five mortality, with one in four children not surviving beyond their fifth birthday. The infant mortality rate is amongst the highest in the world, at 165 per 1,000 live births, while Afghanistan's maternal mortality ratio is equally alarming at 1,600 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births.
UNICEF points to a number of factors that continue to impact on the health of the country's women and children. Major causes of mortality among children include diarrhoea, acute respiratory infection, malaria and micronutrient deficiencies. Chronic malnutrition remains prevalent in Afghanistan. A survey conducted in Badghis province in 2002 showed a 58% prevalence of chronic malnutrition and 7% of acute malnutrition among children under five years of age. Iodine deficiency is common in women, resulting in low birth weight, deafness, and cretinism in newborns - lack of iodine is believed to contribute to a reduced IQ level of up to 15 points in some parts of Afghanistan. Poor complementary feeding, breastfeeding practices and lack of nutrient-dense complementary foods are important factors leading to the high prevalence of chronic malnutrition.
UNICEF also reports a number of successes in tackling Afghanistan's continuing health and nutrition difficulties. More than six million children were immunized against polio in 2002 on five separate occasions, while reported cases of measles dropped from 400 per month to just 94 per month during last year, helped by a major immunization campaign that reached eleven million children. In the first months of 2003, more than 700,000 women were vaccinated against neo-natal tetanus. In 2002, more than 300,000 children benefited from supplementary and therapeutic feeding programmes supported by UNICEF, while the first Centre of Excellence for Obstetric Care was established at Kabul's Malalai Maternity Hospital and the first training programmes for auxiliary midwives were undertaken in eastern Afghanistan.
Against this background UNICEF Representative in Afghanistan, Dr. Sharad Sapra, said today "Failing to tackle the health and nutritional challenges of Afghanistan will impede any serious long-term development in this country. The health of the population is directly related to the reconstruction of Afghanistan. UNICEF has therefore committed its support to a number of critical activities, amongst which are the establishment of emergency obstetric care facilities in every province of the country, an investment of US$16 million to immunization programmes for children and women, support to 25 therapeutic feeding centres within Ministry of Health hospitals across Afghanistan, and the establishment of eight salt iodation plants across the country to help reduce the incidence of goiter, and mental and physical stunting caused by iodine deficiency."
Dr Sapra added "While the international community has to date been a generous supporter of health programmes in Afghanistan, there remain gaps in funding in critical areas such as maternal health. For many years, the outside world expressed outrage and anger at the restrictions placed on women's access to health in this country; the time for such outrage has now passed. What we need is long-term commitment to investing in projects that serve to strengthen women's and children's rights to quality health care. The statistics announced today clearly underline that much work remains to be done to improve the health of every woman and children in Afghanistan; that work can only begin if all concerned - the Government of Afghanistan, organizations like UNICEF, WHO and our partners - are given the means with which we can undertake the task."
To date in 2003, UNICEF has received 65% of the US$ 35 million required to undertake its health programmes in partnership with the Afghan Ministry of Health. However, in the area of maternal health there remains a shortfall of nearly US$ 4 million - 46% of the funding required for this area of UNICEF's work in Afghanistan.
Questions and Answers
Question: Regarding nutrition and maternal mortality, for years Afghanistan has ranked high, what are the reasons for this and why has it not been tackled so far?
UNICEF: If we look at the malnutrition problems, what we're talking about is chronic malnutrition as opposed to acute malnutrition where you would see the visible signs of malnutrition. Institutional problems need to be faced. Basically it relates to poor diet amongst the Afghan population, a lack of education about good feeding practices particularly amongst young children who are not being breastfed, who are not getting access to high quality food in their diet, and also lack some of the basic micronutrients that they need, such as vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, and iodine. These are some of the major causes of this chronic malnutrition that we are seeing. We, the international community and the government here in Afghanistan, need to work together to improve the economic stability of communities so that they can provide better food for their families, for their children. We need to look at better agricultural systems so Afghanistan can start producing more of the right types of food and we need to improve people's education. We need to provide more information about good feeding practices particularly for mothers with newborn children which will actually have a major impact on the long-term nutritional status of children. If we look at the second issue you mentioned of maternal health as you rightly say this has been a major concern in Afghanistan for many years. Some of the key factors that we know have contributed to one of the highest rates of maternal mortality in the world here in Afghanistan are things like lack of access to community-based health care, the fact that there aren't enough community-based health workers particularly midwives and auxiliary midwives who can provide immediate care to a woman who is suffering complications in her pregnancy. The major causes of death amongst pregnant women are actually very simple things such as haemorrhaging, such as obstructed labor. These are conditions which can actually be identified and treated very quickly if there are even just basic health care facilities on the ground. So we need to invest more in those community-based health workers. A second factor is that even if we do recognize some of those problems and a woman has to be taken to a maternity hospital or an obstetric care centre, they simply don't exist, or the access is so difficult it's difficult to move a woman to a centre for that more specialized treatment. This is why UNICEF has committed this year to ensuring that in every province in Afghanistan there will be at the very least an obstetric care centre where women can access that type of specialist treatment. I think the final aspect in terms of women's health is just getting the message across to communities that women's health is important, that an healthy women has a much more positive, a much stronger role to play in her community and that women's right to health is as important as a man's right to health. It's a question of working with communities to make them more aware of the importance of women's health, to make sure that women do get access to health care and that families have a better understanding of some of the problems that women can face in terms of their health and know where to turn to find solutions. I hope that gives you just a couple of examples of the way we think we can move forwards.
Question: The security threat to foreigners in Kandahar city, is it a cross-border threat or a localized threat?
Spokesman: Well evidently it is manifesting itself within Afghanistan. As you know many observers including ourselves have talked about the regrouping of the former Taliban, former Al Qaeda who would have been involved in these acts. The authorities, the coalition forces are the ones dealing directly with this matter and they would be in a better position to give you further details on the exact nature of the assailants in any of these acts.
Question: What is the level of the threat? How do you rate it?
Spokesman: We don't rate threat levels. Unfortunately we have to deal with the consequences of lack of security which we have been talking about. You know that the mission briefs the Security Council every month and in addition to that every three months there is a report on Afghanistan by the Secretary-General. At every briefing, be it oral or written, we have talked about security. We have brought to the attention of all concerned that Afghanistan is not yet in a stable situation. We have raised a number of times the need for the expansion of the multi-national force to provide security - that was not possible. In the long term what you have to do is what is starting to happen, with the new army and the new police but that will not solve the problem tomorrow or today. But we have to deal with it. That's why for a number of days in the south operations were severely limited, hampered, because we could not move until that security risk was better assessed by those in charge. You know the responsibility for providing security to any international organization in any country is that of the host government authorities so they have been very active in looking into it since this very sad event of a few days ago when an ICRC colleague was killed. The measures that I just announced today are the measures that came as a result of these discussions and assessment, very active discussions involving the UN, the NGOs, and the government authorities. Let's hope that this will help the work that we have to do, but the security is not yet fully guaranteed, that's a problem. It's not a surprise, we know where we are, had this country not been in need of international assistance we would not be here and we know what the implications are, but you need to have [security] conditions to do your work.
Question: Let's be clear, are there international and UN aid workers still operating in Kandahar and Uruzgan?
Spokesman: Yes there has been absolutely no reduction of UN personnel in the south. Some NGOs have reduced their personnel, a few others have removed, relocated their personnel from the south however programmes continue, of course with limitations. The measures I announced today are an attempt to enable the programmes to continue. Let's hope, inshallah, this will indeed be the case but evidently we have to move with caution.
Question: Where are there extra troops deployed?
Spokesman: That I would not know, you would really have to talk to the authorities about that.
Question: Are you going to resume movements or are you waiting for the decision today?
Spokesman: No, no I think we'll resume movements because the extra time was needed for these measures to be put in place, for instance the additional 50 security forces to be placed in each district of Kandahar province, for the security checkpoints to be established as well. So we needed time for this to be put in place and presumably this will be done by the end of the day and therefore we will be able to start movements from tomorrow.
Question: It's a large number of security personnel, where are they all coming from and who is paying the price?
Spokesman: Kandahar government, the Afghan government will foot the bill.
Question: Won't a large number of security personnel go missing from Kandahar?
Spokesman: The authorities feel that these measures are appropriate and that they can do it. I believe they know the situation, they know the people they have, in order to afford, not only financially but also afford the manpower to do it.
Question: Against this background the creation of the Afghan National Army, it was announced that 50 per cent of the 70,000 strong army would be established in one year, but security seems to be worsening [inaudible]
Spokesman: I haven't seen 50 per cent in one year. You know that the security sector has five sub-sectors, new army, new police, fight against drugs, new judicial system and DDR. For DDR UNAMA and Japan are the focal points, for judicial reform Italy is the focal point, for the fight against drugs the UK is the focal point, for the new police Germany is the focal point and for the new army the US is the focal point, so I really have to refer you to them on the question of timeframes. But they have already trained six or seven battalions, I don't think all of them are full strength, evidently more momentum is necessary. I think that this agreement being signed today on Afghanistan's New Beginnings Programme (ANBP) will certainly be a boost because it is intimately related to the establishment of the new army and the new police because it will provide the financial means for those who will not be joining the new police or the army to have the necessary assistance to be reintegrated into civilian life successfully. Not only here but in other countries that went through this, for those who are leaving the current military formations you need to provide them with the means to provide for their families. They need to have jobs or they need to be trained, educated in order to be able to earn a living in civilian life. Many of them have not seen anything other than fighting, other than belonging to some sort of militia, other than being under the leadership of some factional leader, some commander. So the ANBP is an important aspect of this effort to get the new army and the new police going. All of these sub-sectors in the security sector indeed are inter-related.
Question: Where is the funding for ANBP coming from?
Spokesman: From donor countries, the donors are Japan, Canada and the UK. They are main donors so far but I'm sure there will be others joining. [There is also a pledge from the US]
Question: I was reading an article today saying that the US is funding a number of militias in the regions, for instance in the Kandahar area. Isn't there a paradox here that the US are funding militia while at the same time the international community is trying to get rid of them, paying them to return to civilian life, isn't it a contradiction?
Spokesman: I would say it's a complication, but the world we live in is not a black and white world. I don't know where you come from but I'm sure you must have many paradoxes in your own society. Certainly it's not a surprise the question you are raising, I would not be able to comment further because I do not have details of the so-called war on terror and I would have to refer you to the Americans on that.