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Photo: Tewodros Negash/IRIN

Amina Nuri lost two children while being delivered by a traditional birth attendant

(IRIN) – Ethiopia has made some headway towards improving maternal and child health, but more needs to be done to reduce the high number of preventable deaths, says an official.

“I know that we have gaps in effectively addressing maternal health, but previous assessments are showing us that if we [make a] concerted effort, we can achieve goal number five of the MDGs [Millennium Development Goals],” Kebede Worku, State Minister for Health, said.

The ministry has just concluded a two-month campaign to promote safe motherhood but public relations officer Ahmed Emano said the campaign would continue in various forms in upcoming months.

“We are not only working to achieve the MDGs, but to have even more ambitious targets to improve maternal health in the country,” the minister told IRIN at the end of the first phase of the campaign, No woman should die while giving life.

The campaign, according to the health ministry, is being positioned as the start of a long-term mobilization initiative – ultimately to be extended through 2015 in line with the MDGs.

It aims to raise public awareness, facilitate dialogue on the importance of improving maternal health and secure commitments for accelerating reduction of maternal and neonatal mortality.

Dire situation

Ethiopia’s 2009 demographic and health survey showed that 25,000 women died every year giving birth, while 300,000 babies died annually across the country. In terms of personnel, the country had only one midwife and three doctors for every 100,000 citizens. Only 6 percent of births occurred in a health facility attended by skilled health personnel, a report by the UN Population Fund stated. As a result, many women deliver under the care of traditional birth attendants – which can be risky.

Amina Nuri, 32, for example, lost two of her children due to complications. “The traditional birth attendant was very much respected in my area,” she told IRIN in Hawassa Referral Hospital in the Southern Region. “I don’t know what went wrong with my delivery twice.”

Photo: Tewodros Negash/IRIN

Ethiopia has only only one midwife and three doctors for every 100,000 citizens

Eventually, Amina undertook a difficult three-hour journey to the hospital to deliver another child. “I had to walk some three hours to reach here [Hawassa Referral Hospital],” she said. “I am bleeding now; the nearby [medical centre] could not stop it. I am afraid that I might lose this one as well.”

Million Getachew, a gynaecologist at the hospital, however, said Amina’s case was not common because there were relatively better facilities in the Southern Region. “We are trying our level best to address maternal health,” he said. “The hospital is equipped with all the necessary equipments and the regional government has also given attention to address maternal health. We are providing the best treatment in the country.”

Improvements

Earlier this year, the Minister of Finance and Economic Development, Sofian Ahmed, told parliament that out of eight MDGs, improving maternal health was a big challenge for the government.

“We need to be able to provide modern health facilities to every district in the country,” he said. “This requires a lot of focused effort and development partners’ support.”

Despite the challenges, international partners say Ethiopia will achieve this goal. “I am confident that Ethiopia is on the right track towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals to reduce maternal and child mortality,” Ted Chaiban, representative of the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), said.

The MDGs are eight international development goals that all 192 UN member states and at least 23 international organizations have agreed to achieve by the year 2015. They include reducing extreme poverty, reducing child mortality rates, fighting disease epidemics such as HIV/AIDS, and developing a global partnership for development.

According to Ethiopia’s ministry of finance and economic development, the country has made “astounding” progress on the goals. In the early 1990s, indicators of poverty, malnutrition, and basic health were among the worst in the world, with widespread hunger and food insecurity, a literacy rate of only 26 percent, and an infant mortality rate of 123 per 1,000. Fewer than a third of children were in school.

By 2008, primary school enrolment had topped 91 percent, infant mortality fell to 77 per 1,000, while the proportion of the population with access to clean water increased to 52.4 percent, according to a government report.

IRIN – An empty market, tightened security and a general wariness of possible violence have greeted the announcement of President Fauré Gnassingbé’s re-election, pending constitutional court approval, with 61 percent of the two million votes cast on 4 March.

Business at the largest market in the capital, Lomé, has slowed after anxious merchants shuttered their stands. “I am waiting to see how the country will be after results are announced to continue my work in the market,” fish vendor, Da Vivi, told IRIN. “Since Friday [5 March] I have not been to the market because I do not know what will happen. My life is more important than money.” 
 
Demonstrations were quickly dispersed with tear gas during the vote count and again on 7 March. There have not been reports of excessive use of force, according to local human rights groups. Hotlines set up to report poll violence remained silent. 

President Gnassingbé was elected in a 2005 contested poll that led to a bloody security crackdown, hundreds of deaths and tens of thousands of Togolese fleeing to neighbouring countries, according to the UN.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=88337

Disappointed by the “failure” of the Copenhagen talks to adequately help poor countries adapt to climate change, the Burkina Faso government and farmers are working to adjust farming techniques to changing weather patterns.

“Despite the failure of Copenhagen we must follow adaptation at our own cost because we have been experiencing the impacts of climate change in Burkina for several years, and they are getting worse,” Bassiaka Dao, confederation of farmers in Burkina Faso (CPF) president, told IRIN.

Dao said the US$10 billion that rich nations agreed to provide annually to developing countries to help mitigate climate change effects was insufficient. The UN said at the Copenhagen meetings that $25 billion to $50 billion per year would be required.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87806

IRIN – Farmers are turning to urban gardens as a way to boost food security in Liberia’s Montserrado County, where just one percent of residents grow their own produce today compared to 70 percent before the war.

Some 40 percent of Liberia’s population lives in the capital, Monrovia – located in Montserrado – after years of fighting sparked rural communities to move to the city. Many new arrivals had no access to land and have crowded into slums.

Over half of Monrovia’s residents live on less than US$1 a day, according to the World Bank.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87798

IRIN – The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) “accelerated child survival programme” in 11 West African countries did not save significantly more lives than in areas that were not targeted, says an evaluation published in The Lancet this week – but analysts say this does not mean UNICEF was doing the wrong things.

“They did the right things,” Jennifer Bryce, evaluator and researcher at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told IRIN. “They did what is feasible to do quickly and outside of health systems. Where there was disappointment and missed opportunity was that they did not do more.”

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/

IRIN – Every year Liberian farmers lose 60 percent of their harvest to birds and vermin or poor storage conditions, contributing to country-wide food insecurity, say UN officials, who are calling on donors to put more funding into pest management and storage.

The Ministry of Agriculture estimates 52,000 tons of rice out of 144,000 produced in 2007 was lost, while 44,027 tons of a 155,293 ton harvest was lost in 2008.

“Our interaction with farmers has shown they lack very basic knowledge of pest control,” said Augustus Flomo, a consultant with local NGO Agency for Economic Development and Empowerment (AEDE), which partners with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Liberia.

Read more – http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=87730

World Bank – The World Bank assisted Commercial Agriculture Project has taken off in the 5 participating states of Nigeria.  The states are Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Cross River and Kano.

During the just concluded First joint supervision mission of the Project, the Task Team Leader, Lucas Kolawole Akapa of the World Bank expressed satisfaction with the readiness and support of the participating states for the success of the $150 million project through the payment of their counterpart funds.  He expressed satisfaction with the state governments for the prompt payment of the counterpart funds.

Read more – http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/AFRICAEXT/0,,contentMDK:22423303~menuPK:258658~pagePK:2865106~piPK:2865128~theSitePK:258644,00.html

IPS – A war is raging in the eastern part of the country, once the centre stage for battles during the 10-year civil war and the place where “blood diamonds” were once mined. But this time the war is not for diamonds, but about whether a woman has the right to stand for paramount chief in the local chieftaincy election.

The decision of whether women can stand for a chieftaincy election in Sierra Leone is being challenged here in Kono, the eastern part of Sierra Leone.

Read more – http://www.ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=49699