[child-rights] Zimbabwe: UK invests £22 million to improve lives of orphans and vulnerable children

UNICEF Press release

NEW YORK / LONDON / HARARE, 11 April 2006 – The UK’s Department for
International Development (DFID) has given £22 million to the UN
Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Zimbabwe in a bid to improve the plight of
orphans and vulnerable children across the country.

“Almost one in three children in Zimbabwe, 1.6 million, are now orphaned,
having lost at least one parent, and this number is growing,” UNICEF
Executive Director Ann M. Veneman said. “HIV and AIDS have dramatically
increased children’s vulnerability in recent years.”

The funding from DFID – the largest ever to UNICEF in Zimbabwe – will help
deliver a national plan of action for orphans and vulnerable children.

“This generous contribution will help us achieve one of the four main
goals of the “Unite for Children, Unite Against AIDS” global campaign – to
protect and support children affected by HIV/AIDS,” Veneman said.

UNICEF convened “Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS” to highlight and
address the effects of HIV/AIDS pandemic on children and to work towards
Millennium Development Goal (MDG) 6 – to halt and begin to reverse the
spread of the disease by 2015. In addition to protecting and supporting
children who have lost parents to the disease, the campaign aims to
prevent mother-to-child HIV transmission, provide paediatric treatment and
prevent infection among adolescents and young people.

As part of Zimbabwe’s National Plan of Action (NPA) for orphans and
vulnerable children, UNICEF is embarking on a massive programme to improve
the health, education, protection and nutrition of the country’s orphans
and vulnerable children. The National Plan has the support of the highest
levels of government, as well as the United Nations and civil society in
Zimbabwe.

The funds from DFID will go towards: 
* Increasing school enrolment of orphans and vulnerable children
* Family and community support
* School nutrition programmes
* Increasing the number of children with birth certificates
* Increasing access to food, health services, water and sanitation
* Reducing the number of children living outside a family
environment.
* Reducing physical abuse of orphans

UK Secretary of State for International Development Hilary Benn said, “New
data shows that the number of orphans in Zimbabwe will rise even after the
number of adults infected with HIV starts to decline. It’s now essential
to put programmes in place to ensure these children have somewhere to
live, enough to eat, healthcare and education. Today’s funding from the UK
Government will help UNICEF reach these most vulnerable of children.”

“We are grateful to DFID for their continued support of UNICEF’s work,”
said Veneman. “These funds will make possible programmes critical to the
health and well being of a growing population of children left on their
own in Zimbabwe.”

Despite the country’s much-publicised economic collapse, Zimbabweans
continue to lead by example in their care for the country’s orphans and
vulnerable children.

More than 90 per cent of the country’s orphans have been absorbed by the
extended family. Two in five households in the poorest areas of rural
Zimbabwe care for orphans and other vulnerable children. And yet until
now, less than half of all these rural households received any form of
free external support in the past year. The NPA for orphans and vulnerable
children now calls upon the private sector and international donors to
provide resources; community-based organizations and traditional leaders
to support Child Protection Committees at the village, district and
provincial level; and parents, teachers, children and church members to
work to educate their peers, colleagues and congregations about the NPA,
and then push for its success.

All money to Zimbabwe from the UK government goes through UN agencies and
Non-Governmental Organisations. The funds from DFID, in addition to £2m
given to UNICEF last year, will be distributed over four years. They come
as Zimbabwean children are faced with some of the worst hardships
confronting children anywhere in the world. These include:

* A child is orphaned every 20 minutes in Zimbabwe 
* One in eight children now die before the age of five compared with
one in 13 children 15 years ago 
* Three infants become infected with HIV every hour
* Every 20 minutes a child dies of AIDS in Zimbabwe

Hilary Benn added: “Anyone who has seen the hardships of these orphans and
the resolve and determination of struggling Zimbabweans to assist them
must be moved to help. In UNICEF we have a partner who is reaching out to
orphans across the country. I hope others will now join us.”