Unicef fights drought with cash : Supporting families to keep kids in school Mr Yves Willemot

Nqobile Tshili ,[email protected]

UNITED Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (Unicef) Zimbabwe is supporting more than 50 000 households in the country with cash transfers as part of its El Nino drought mitigation measures to keep children in school.

Vulnerable households under the scheme receive an average of US$40 to supplement their incomes in a bid to ensure that families are cushioned from the adverse effects of drought.

In the past, the drought has been linked to an increase in the number of children dropping out of school due to hunger.There have also been cases of child labour when children drop out of school to engage in some form of employment to support their families.

The Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education has since started a school feeding programme whose aim is to keep children in school.In a recent interview, Unicef Zimbabwe’s chief of communications Mr Yves Willemot said climate change threatens the rights of children and supporting their families is part of the efforts to ensure that they remain in class.

“It is important for children that even during dire situations they continue their education. Therefore, we are rolling out a programme of cash transfers in supporting the Ministry of Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare,” he said.

“This is to make sure that we increase the resilience of households to deal with shocks as created by El Nino and reduce the risk for children to be pulled out of school,” said Mr Willemot.

“As we speak, we are supporting more than 50 000 households that have received cash transfers. We are focusing on the most vulnerable households and depending on the number of members in the household they get an average of US$40.”

He said lessons from past disasters have proven that it is difficult to bring back to the education sector pupils who would have dropped out of school.

Mr Willemot said the climate change issue has been a child crisis as challenges caused by climate change affect children.

“Let us remind ourselves that the climate change crisis is a child crisis and it impacts on all the rights of children and this is now the case with El Nino,” he said.

“We naturally would link the challenges created by El Nino and rightfully so which has increased scarcity of access to water and to appropriate food.

“But the impact goes beyond, it has an impact for instance on the educational opportunities of children,” said Mr Willemot.

“Today a growing number of households are challenged by the decrease of income because of the drought. Therefore, there is a risk that the households might not be able to pay school fees and even ask their children to remain at home and be involved in some income generating activities including child labour activities where by children are not able to continue with their schooling and their education.”

Mr Willemot said following President Mnangagwa’s declaration of the drought as a state of disaster calling for US$2 billion support to mitigate against the drought that has left 7,7 million citizens food insecure, Unicef made a US$84,9 million disaster response appeal.

However, Mr Willemot said it was unfortunate that their appeal has not yielded a positive response with UN agencies resorting to rededicating its funds to address some of the drought-induced crisis.

“So, we are calling on the donors to respond generously so that we can scale up the programmes at the time when the need is urgent.

“Our programmes are being funded by internal resources through the United Nations emergency relief funds. So, we are calling on the donor community to come forward to assist us with resources, which are becoming urgent so that we can scale up the programmes,” said Mr Willemot.

“Children need to be protected against the consequences of the drought created by the El Nino.”

He said there was a need to strengthen disaster resilience mechanisms to ensure that children’s rights are not negatively affected.Unicef further projects that at least 580 000 children are at risk of malnutrition if immediate interventions are not made.

Mr Willemot said it was critical that the figures have been released early as they can be addressed while stating that more El Nino-induced impact will be felt up to next year. — @nqotshili

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