Interview with UNICEF deputy executive director

More than two years after the fall of the Taliban, enrolment levels in the country's schools are higher than ever before. In an interview with IRIN, UNICEF's Deputy Executive Director Karin Sham Poo said that Afghanistan could well meet many of UNICEF's millennium goals by 2005, including gender parity at primary school level. Sham Poo, who visited Afghanistan recently, said despite major achievements, maternal mortality and child mortality continued to be a serious concern for the UN's children agency. But the official expressed concern that huge challenges remained. According to UNICEF there are still 1.5 million girls of primary school age who are still not benefiting from education. QUESTION: What has been your impression of visiting Afghanistan during your last week? ANSWER: My impression is that a lot of progress has been made. Of course there are still many challenges, but the positive thing is that there are more children at school than ever before. There are a large number of girls - about 37 percent of the school children at primary level are girls, which is a remarkable achievement. Meanwhile, I have seen a commitment from all the key ministries we are working with. I have seen commitment from the [provincial] governors and from the private sector. I am impressed by the willingness and understanding of the need to invest in children. Actually I am quite impressed by what I have seen in Afghanistan. There are still many challenges though; there are still one million girls of primary school age that are not in school. Afghanistan still has one of the highest child and maternal mortality rates in the world. Maternal mortality is a big problem for many countries in the world. In Afghanistan, we are supporting emergency obstetric care to make sure that women that really need urgent help in connection with pregnancy and child birth can get access to that. Among other things, we have started to work with religious leaders who have come up themselves with a declaration to focus on the health improvement of women and children. Q: What is UNICEF's commitment of Afghanistan in the short and longer term? A: Afghanistan is one of the largest country programmes that UNICEF has worldwide. UNICEF has been in Afghanistan since 1970s and we never left. We are going to continue to be here to assist the government to work with religious leaders to work with NGOs and continue to do whatever is possible to improve the situation for children and women. UNICEF's core resource is around US $10 million a year just for Afghanistan. Afghanistan, with its indicators, is the big receiver of our core resources. In addition to that we are raising funds and continue to raise funds from a variety of donors, including the private sector and our national committees in 37 industrialised countries. Q: What have been UNICEF's biggest achievements in Afghanistan? A: The biggest achievement, together with the ministry of education and our partners, is that in less than two years, we have 4.2 million children back at school and we assume that at the end of the school year 5.5 million children will be back to school. Another very good achievement is that Afghanistan is very close to being polio-free. It is also a major achievement because Afghanistan is not a country that is easily accessible. Another area of concern for us is that we need to continue to do everything possible to reduce the child and maternal mortality rate. We have identified some of the most important areas to focus on together with a number of ministries. Q: While the process of disarmament has already started in the country, where is UNICEF's child soldier reintegration initiative right now? A: We have identified around 5,000 children that we will assist to reintegrate back into society. It is very important that they have the opportunity for vocational training or other kinds of training so they can feel they can serve an important purpose. The latest figures so far are that over 600 child soldiers have now gone through the demobilisation programme. The feeling is that communities want to see this programme working and that children really want to take up these opportunities. Q: How significant is UNICEF's new effort to improve women and children's health by using religious leaders to promote these messages? A: UNICEF has worked with religious leaders in many countries and we have seen it as a very important vehicle to reach the ordinary man and woman. In Afghanistan we are working through the ministry of religious affairs. What is very exciting is that together with the ministry, we are going to have workshops [with religious leaders] throughout 2004. We are planning to reach 50,000 religious leaders throughout the country. Q: So you are optimistic? A: Yes, first in the shorter term, Afghanistan will meet some of UNICEF's millennium development goals, which is to reach gender parity [equal participation of girls and boys in primary schools] by 2005. I actually think that Afghanistan will be one of the countries that will reach that. It will be really remarkable because there are a number of countries in the world that have been working on this much longer and will most likely not reach it. Q: According to UNICEF's recent reports, Afghanistan needs tens of thousands of new schools to meet the demand for education in coming years. How would you address this gap? A: One of our priorities for this year is 10,000 community-based schools. Because there are many areas where there are no schools and there is a major obstacle for girls. That is where the mosques and tents schools come into place and we are converting existing community buildings into schools so there are separate rooms for girls. Our targeting areas will be the areas where there is nothing and no option in terms of education. First of all, the access to a school closer to home is very important particularly when it comes to girls. And again, by talking with religious leaders and also others to create learning spaces at the community level, we hope that another 500,000 girls will return to school. We will continue to support both curriculum development and teacher training with a particular focus on getting more female teachers back to school.