UNICEF Director calls for greater social spending

UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy told IRIN on Thursday that the Angolan government should take the lead in investing in the future of the country’s children. But she also stressed that donors, non-governmental organisations and the United Nations should continue to play a role - even if humanitarian intervention could provide only a short-term solution. Whenever UNICEF has examined the indicators of the quality of children’s lives in different countries, Angola has consistently ended up near the bottom of the scale. Thirty percent of Angolan children die before the age of five - of those who survive, less than half receive even basic education. Angola is one of about 20 countries in the world where polio - a disease affecting children and which can cause life-long disability - has not yet been eradicated. Bellamy, speaking during a visit to Luanda this week, described Angola as a country still experiencing “a significant humanitarian challenge, with large numbers of people still displaced from their home communities, and so just the delivery of basic health and education services is very difficult”. In an interview with IRIN she said the reasons for this situation were complex. “There is a failure of adequate investment in basic services - education and health,” Bellamy argued. “This is a government that needs to do more. That being said, it’s a country that’s been at war,” the UNICEF director continued. “War has taken on a new face in the world today - a civilian, human face, not a military face, because war hits children and women the hardest.” She also described Angola as a country “that’s been forgotten by the donors”. Bellamy argued that Angola should receive more in return from those who have benefited from its natural resources, pointing out that Angola - the second-largest petroleum producer in sub-Saharan Africa - is not a poor country. “Some of that wealth needs to be ploughed back into building the human and economic infrastructure of this country. It needs to support an education system so children get an education - it needs to support a heath system so that children won’t die in the numbers in which they are dying,” she said. UNICEF is supporting the Angolan government in a national polio vaccination campaign. Pointing out that polio had been eradicated in most countries of the world, Bellamy said that the continued existence of the disease in Angola had global implications. The UNICEF director congratulated the Angolan government on pursuing a programme aimed at official registration for all of Angola’s children. An estimated three million children in Angola have no official existence, with war and population displacement having disrupted the registration process. “The registration of a child may be one of the cornerstones of ensuring that the rights of children are ultimately realised,” Bellamy said, pointing out that lack of registration meant children missed out on what health and education services were available - as well as becoming vulnerable to being drafted into the armed forces. Turning to gender inequality, Bellamy said this was no less marked in Angola than elsewhere in the world. “Even with low school enrolment there are more boys enrolled in school than girls - we want boys to get an education but we believe it critically important that girls get an education,” she said. “We believe in being realistic and starting with concrete actions - one kind of concrete action is working within communities - with parents, with families, with teachers - so that they understand the worth of education for girls as well as for boys.” Bellamy said UNICEF was committed to continuing to work in the areas of health and education in Angola. “I think that humanitarian agencies and the UN and others - even when they are operating at their most efficient - can only be short-term solutions. Long-term solutions mean creating an atmosphere where there will be international investment, and that means transparency on the part of government and the private sector. “It requires functioning governance systems it requires functioning health and education capacity. It doesn’t require five-star capacity, just a basic functioning capacity.” But Bellamy also said that UNICEF would seek to intervene in a way that supported long-term solutions. “So not only will we engage in an immediate polio campaign, but we will engage in routine immunisation, that is what will keep children alive,” she elaborated. “Not only will we try and provide back-up for an emergency feeding centre, but our preference would be to support good nutritional protocols in the country, and long-term education.” While acknowledging war as a major cause of the problems facing Angolan children, Bellamy insisted: “One cannot wait until peace exists in all parts of the country to take on some of the issues that need to be taken on now. Who will be the leaders of this country if generations go without school because of the conflict? Why should children die from diseases that are totally preventable at a relatively low cost? Even in the immediate term it requires intervention - and it cannot be just from humanitarian agencies. It certainly requires a long-term approach - one that understands the importance of building credible institutions.”