Category: Health

Editor’s note: recently it was announced that Eritrea’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations (UN), Ambassador Sophia Tesfamariam, would serve as Chair of the African Group of Permanent Representatives at the UN for the month of June 2021. Undoubtedly, this is a highly significant moment, both for her individually and the nation of Eritrea as a whole. Here, we offer a brief overview of the UN and some background about the African Group, while also sharing Ambassador Sophia’s message upon her assuming the position of Chair of the African Group.

Established on 24 October 1945, the UN is a multipurpose international organization that currently comprises 193 Member States. Headquartered in New York City, the UN also has regional offices in Geneva, Vienna, and Nairobi. The UN has six official languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish.

According to its Charter, the UN aims “to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights,… to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained, and to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.” In addition to maintaining peace and security, the UN seeks to fulfill several other important objectives. These include: developing friendly relations among countries based on respect for the principles of equal rights and self-determination of peoples; achieving global cooperation to address international economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian challenges and problems; respecting and promoting human rights; and serving as a center where countries can organize and coordinate their actions and activities toward these various ends.

One of the UN’s most important structures is the UN General Assembly (UNGA). The UNGA, which is the main deliberative, policymaking, and representative organ of the UN and comprises all 193 Member States, provides a unique forum for multilateral discussion of international issues including peace and security. Each of the 193 Member States in the UNGA has one vote. The votes taken on designated important issues, such as recommendations on peace and security, the election of UN Security Council and Economic and Social Council members, and budgetary questions, require a two-thirds majority of Member States, but other questions are decided by a simple majority.

Within the UNGA, Member States are divided into various geographical groupings. These are the groupings through which elections are conducted into various UN bodies and agencies. The continent of Africa is allocated 3 non-permanent members of the UN Security Council, 14 members on ECOSOC, 13 Members on the Human Rights Council and the President of the General Assembly in years ending 4 and 9.

The Africa Group at the United Nations is made up of the 54 African Union Member States at the UN. The bloc coordinates its efforts on various topics, ranging from health and migration to issues of peace and security. The group generally holds regular meetings to receive briefings from guests and UN officials and discuss on UN resolutions and topics so that a common African position can be reached.

The group is chaired by an Ambassador from a Member State, with the position rotating monthly. The African Union Observer Mission serves as a coordinating secretariat for the group by arranging meetings, supporting the Chair, and generally providing logistical and administrative assistance where necessary.

Message from Ambassador Sophia Tesfamariam, Chair African Group

It is both an honor and privilege to serve the African Group (AG) for the first time. It is not a task I take lightly and know that it will be a most rewarding experience. It provides a platform to engage with other stakeholders on behalf of the AG, advance the visibility of our membership at the UN, and hone new skills.

With the pandemic continuing to rage, 2021 will be a critical year for Africa. The COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on all 17 SDGs has shown that it is not just a health crisis but rather, a global human and socio-economic crisis. The impact of the COVID- 19 pandemic threatens to reverse progress, hitting those most vulnerable hardest, leaving many behind further.

Addressing the pandemic-related global health and socioeconomic recovery, effects of climate change, reducing biodiversity loss, and environmental degradation will take center stage for the foreseeable future. As the recent discussions during the Africa Dialogue Series showed, Africa can leverage its many opportunities to help strengthen resilience to overcome its myriad challenges.

Africa’s increasing youth demographics and its wealth of natural resources offer distinct advantages for the development of its trade, industry, employment, and tourism sectors. Science, technology, and innovation have been identified as being key to economic transformation in Africa. Africa needs to reaffirm its identity and take ownership of its future.

It is only when Africa’s economies, the quality of its infrastructure, the standards of its health and educational institutions, the level of its artistic, scientific and technological products, the effectiveness of its institutions and enterprises, and more importantly the quality of life of its citizens, reflect more accurately its great potential that we can rightly speak of Africa taking its rightful place in the world.

The Africa Group will explore all avenues for Africa’s post-COVID recovery and towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, in fulfillment of Agenda 2063, and its aspirations for the Africa we want.

Source: Ministry of Information Eritrea

BLANTRYE, MALAWI – Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera led a rollout Friday of a push for a second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, with a strong call to Malawians to go for vaccination to prevent a third wave of the coronavirus pandemic. The call came a day after health authorities in Malawi announced the presence of a more contagious Indian variant in the country, which has infected 14 people. Despite this, authorities bemoan the continued low vaccination rate.

During a televised event at the state residence in Lilongwe, Malawi President Lazarus Chakwera said he and Vice President Saulos Chilima decided to lead the campaign for a second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine to prove its importance and safety.

He said this also was to dispel misconceptions and fears some Malawians have about the COVID-19 vaccination.

“The AstraZeneca vaccine we are using is a good vaccine whose aim is to protect us from COVID-19. That’s why my vice president and I were the first to have vaccinated in March, and now we want to become the first to have the second jab in public. Our aim is that you should be protected, there is no need to fear.”

The call came a day after health authorities in Malawi announced the presence of a more contagious Indian variant in the country that infected 14 people.

Despite the announcement of the Indian variant, the administration of the second jab has started in a low-key manner compared to the first dose.

For example, local media reported Friday that some vaccination centers were vaccinating just three people daily.

Health experts say this is largely because of lack of information on the importance of the second dose.

George Jobe is executive director for Health Equity Network.

“Our recommendation is that we need to package special jingles and messages tailored toward the second dosage,” said Jobe. “Those [messages] should fly in our media, encouraging those who got their first jab to get their second jab to complete. And we should also show the benefits of completing the dosage.”

Jobe also said there is a need to use community structures, like religious leaders and village chiefs, to encourage their subjects to get the second jab.

“What we noted recently, just a few weeks ago as we are getting close to a second jab, the negative information also resurfaced, threatening that people who got the vaccine may die,” said Jobe. “So, that probably has had an impact, that’s why we need more awareness raising and responding to such negative information.”

Malawi got a total 512,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccines in March. The COVAX facility gave Malawi 360,000 doses, the African Union donated 102,000 doses and about 20,000 of those were destroyed last month after they expired. The Indian government donated 50,000 doses.

As of Thursday, only 355,000 doses had been used.

Another health rights campaigner, Maziko Matemba of the Health and Rights Education Program, says the problem is that Malawi has not created a lot of demand for these vaccines, especially for people in rural areas.

This, he says, has resulted in low uptake of the vaccine.

“We have only managed to vaccinate about one percent of the population because we have to vaccinate about 60 percent,” said Matemba. “So, for us, I think, the government and members of parliament could have made provisional budget to support the demand creation for the vaccine.”

Government authorities say they are now finalizing new awareness messages about the vaccine to help complement its ongoing campaign to encourage people to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Source: Voice of America

The U.N. refugee agency says at least 57 civilians were killed, including seven children, and nearly 6,000 forced to flee, when their displacement sites came under attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s eastern Ituri province on May 31.

The armed rebel group Allied Democratic Forces reportedly staged multiple, simultaneous attacks on displacement sites and villages near the towns of Boga and Tchabi in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Witnesses say the armed men shot and attacked people with machetes, killing and wounding scores of people. They say at least 25 people were abducted and more than 70 shelters and stores set on fire.

U.N. refugee spokesman Babar Balloch called the latest series of atrocities committed by the ADF outrageous and heartbreaking.

“In Boga town alone, 31 women, children and men were killed,” Balloch said. “Bereaved family members told UNHCR partners that many of their relatives were burnt alive in their houses.”

More than 5 million people have been uprooted by insecurity and violence in the DRC — 1.7 million in Ituri province alone. Balloch said security in the region must be scaled up to protect the lives of civilians, many of whom have been attacked and forced to flee multiple times.

“We have seen in the past where there is security present that the number of attacks go down,” Balloch said. “But understanding how these displacement sites are, which are scattered all around the Ituri province, many of them are spontaneous. So, people go through horrendous atrocities at the hands of the armed group.”

The U.N. spokesman said thousands of people fled the attacks with virtually nothing but the clothes on their backs. Many are sleeping out in the open in the bush, and are in desperate need of assistance.

Unfortunately, insecurity is hampering humanitarian work, he said. The office of one of the UNHCR’s partner agencies recently was looted, depriving thousands of crucial aid. Moreover, security concerns have forced health centers in Bunia, the capital of Ituri, to evacuate their staff and temporarily suspend activities.

Source: Voice of America

The bodies of two migrants have been recovered from the Mediterranean Sea and another 20 remain missing a day after two Europe-bound boats foundered off the coast of Tunisia, officials said Wednesday.

Tunisian naval units rescued a total 109 people, the Defense Ministry said. Most of the migrants were from sub-Saharan Africa.

The separate sinkings were the latest in a series of accidents involving migrant boats off the North African country.

A ministry statement said rescuers moved into action after getting an alert from an oil platform, saving 70 migrants from Sudan and Eritrea and one from Egypt. They told officials they had set off from the Libyan town of Zuwara the night before.

In a second operation, 39 migrants were saved off the port city of Sfax where they had embarked, the ministry said.

The International Organization for Migration said 20 people were dead or missing in Tuesday’s incidents.

“These tragic sinkings underscore the unfortunate conditions and the perilous trips of these vulnerable migrants,” the IOM’s Azzouz Samri said.

Fifty migrants drowned off Tunisia in mid-May while 100 others were rescued at the end of the month.

Source: Voice of America