The United Nations has been pushing for a halt to airstrikes and fighting that have killed close to 3,000 people in the country since March when a Saudi-led coalition intervened against Iranian-backed Houthi forces to try to restore exiled President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi to power. According to reports from international organizations, almost 80 percent of the country’s population, more than 20 million people, are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance. Salesian missionaries in the country are working with poor youth and their families in need of assistance despite a host of challenges.

“There is a shortage of electricity, medicines, water and food and the infrastructure has been destroyed by bombing,” says a Salesian priest in Yemen. “Millions of people are living in real misery, constantly in fear of the bombing. There are many who are maimed and others with serious wounds. The psychological damage to children and young people is impossible to calculate.”

Cities such as Aden and Taiz have been devastated. In Aden, two of the three churches served by the Salesian missionaries were looted and partially destroyed. Missionaries reported that things within the church were broken and the few items of value were taken. Although the churches were damaged, Salesian missionaries remain more concerned about the local people who are just trying to survive.

“In Aden, there is heavy fighting taking place and there is a great shortage of the most basic goods,” adds the Salesian priest. “Life is really miserable and to make things worse, there seems to be an epidemic of dengue fever and about 5,000 people are affected. Some have already died and the most likely causes are the lack of cleaning, the stagnant water that lies everywhere and the dead bodies that remain for days in the streets.”

Despite international efforts to resolve the situation, peace talks in Geneva have failed and the bombing continues. While the situation in Yemen has always been difficult for Salesian missionaries, the current fighting in the country, and in particular within Aden, has made it more difficult than ever. With assistance from the Salesian priests, the Sisters of Charity, the only Catholic religious congregation present in the country other than the Salesians, focus their work on humanitarian activities in hospitals, centers for the aged and the infirm and homes for poor and disadvantaged youth. In Sana’a, Salesian missionaries also serve the Catholics attached to the diplomatic missions of various countries.

The Salesian priests and Sisters of Charity are planning to remain in Yemen and assess the situation and their own safety day to day with their primary focus continuing to be on helping those most in need.

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Sources:

ANS – Yemen – “The country is a hell, running short of almost everything”

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Two of the Salesian priests live and work in Sana’a and there is one priest working at each of the other three centers in the country. They oversee the three recognized Catholic churches in Aden and care for the expatriate Catholics hailing from different parts of the world, particularly from the Philippines and India, who work as nurses in the country.

In addition, the Salesian priests assist the Sisters of Charity, the only Catholic religious congregation present in Yemen other than the Salesians. The Sisters of Charity focus their work on humanitarian activities in hospitals, centers for the aged and the infirm and homes for poor and disadvantaged youth. In Sana’a, Salesian missionaries also serve the Catholics attached to the diplomatic missions of various countries.

While the Salesian priests and Sisters of Charity remain safe, the situation is precarious. The fighting intensified weeks ago in the southern port city of Aden, where forces loyal to Yemen’s President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi, who is now exiled, clashed with allies of the Houthis, a well-organized and influential Shiite group in a majority Sunni population, who now control the capital and forced President Hadi from power.

Aden is at the center of the conflict and was President Hadi’s last seat of power before he fled to Saudi Arabia last week. On April 2, Houthi rebels and their allies in Yemen stormed the presidential palace in Aden following heavy clashes. Despite air strikes led by Saudi Arabia, the rebels pushed through Aden using tanks and armored vehicles. They attacked several government buildings including the central prison, where they freed hundreds of inmates, according to a BBC report. At least 44 people have been killed in the violence, including 18 civilians.

“As regards the situation here, so far I am safe. Of course there were frightening moments with rockets passing just above the taxi I was traveling in, shooting and yelling around our church, the sound of bombs and rocket explosions within a range of 5 to 10 kilometers,” says the Salesian priest remaining in the city of Aden.

The lack of an authoritative central power and the withdrawal of foreign missions has made the continued Salesian presence in the country all the more difficult and dangerous. India has asked its citizens, who number more than 4,000, to leave the country.

While the situation in Yemen has always been difficult for Salesian missionaries, the current fighting in Yemen, and in particular within Aden, has made it more difficult than ever.

“Even though there was a civil war here earlier, Aden was a safe place with the presence of many established embassies and their security guards and the army around. But now it is different. There are no embassies in Aden and the countries which were protecting and training the military here have pulled out. Many business firms, companies and wealthy families have left,” adds the Salesian priest in Aden.

Recently, a bomb fell on one of the nursing hostels that had just been blessed by the Salesian priest. Fortunately, none of the nurses were at the hostel during the time and there were no reported injuries. The Sisters of Charity have vowed to remain in Yemen to continue their humanitarian work. The Salesian priests remain as well assessing the situation day to day.

Sources

ANS – Yemen – The situation of the country and of the Salesians

ANS – Yemen – To leave or to stay, while war rages

BBC News – Yemen crisis: Rebels storm presidential palace in Aden

New York Times – Qaeda Militants Attack Port City in Yemen, Freeing Prisoners

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“There is no let-up in the number of humanitarian crises that need our attention, or indeed in their severity,” Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos told a news conference in Geneva.

“Most recently, of course, we have Iraq and the large numbers of displaced people in the last few days and the situation in Ukraine is also worsening.”

Ms. Amos, who is also UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, said the crisis in Syria continues to dominate international response efforts with 9.3 million people in need and 2.8 million people who have become refugees in neighboring countries.

“Violations of humanitarian and human rights law continue unabated by all parties to the conflict in Syria. And 241,000 people remain under siege in areas where almost no aid can go in, and there are few ways for people to get out.”

Resolution 2139, adopted by the Security Council earlier this year with the intention of boosting humanitarian access into Syria, “has had little impact and access remains extremely difficult.”

She also highlighted the crisis in the Central African Republic (CAR), where over half of the population – or 2.5 million women, children and men – urgently need protection and relief to meet their most basic needs.

While the strategic response plan in CAR targets 1.9 million people for humanitarian aid, Ms. Amos said violence and insecurity is cutting off entire communities and aid workers themselves have been attacked.

In South Sudan, some 1.5 million people have been uprooted by violence in the past six months alone and the situation continues to deteriorate. “Despite the ceasefire, we are seeing ongoing violence and conflict. With the onset of the rains, cholera has broken out and malaria is taking its toll on children and on adults alike,” Ms. Amos reported.

Aid agencies have just released a new plan to help 3.8 million people in South Sudan by December with emergency healthcare, food, clean water, sanitation and shelter. “There is no time to waste if we are to avoid a famine later in the year,” said the UN humanitarian chief.

Meanwhile, there are continuing challenges in countries like Yemen, where nearly 15 million are in need of aid; Somalia where one million remain internally displaced and in a state of extreme vulnerability; and Sudan, where UN agencies and non-governmental organizations are targeting five million people as needs grow, especially in Darfur, South Kordofan and Blue Nile states.

“This year, we asked for a record $16.9 billion, the highest amount ever requested in a single year. As of today, we have received 30 per cent of that funding, or $5.2 billion. We still have to raise $11.7 billion,” Ms. Amos stated.

“Humanitarian organizations will continue to try to scale up efforts – our capacity is stretched to the limit. We need the continued support of the international community, we need not just the funding, but we also need the access if we are going to do our jobs effectively.”

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Photo: Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos arrives for a news conference in Geneva. UN Photo/Jean-Marc Ferré

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From today, Somali children will receive the Pentavalent vaccine, a combination of five vaccines in one against diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), Hepatitis B and Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib – the bacteria that causes meningitis, pneumonia and other illnesses), all of which are highly prevalent. The vaccine will be part of the routine immunization program.

More than 1.3 million doses of Pentavalent vaccine have been provided to Somalia for 2013 and will be used to immunize children under one year of age. Pentavalent vaccines will be delivered to the 425,000 child born each year in Somalia through existing health structures as well as community health workers at district level. Each child will require three doses of the vaccine.

The launch of the new vaccine takes place in Mogadishu, Garowe (Puntland) and Hargeisa (Somaliland) and will be attended by leading government officials and representatives from GAVI Alliance, UNICEF and WHO.

“Somalia has one of the lowest immunization rates in the world,” said Dr. Seth Berkley, CEO of the GAVI Alliance. “The country’s health system has been destroyed after more than 20 years of conflict and thousands of children are not protected against major killer diseases. This situation is unacceptable and that’s why GAVI and its donors have committed substantial funding to Somalia until 2016.”

The launch of the vaccine is being accompanied by an outreach campaign to make parents aware of the importance of the new vaccine which replaces the DTP vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis (whooping cough). A recent household survey (Multiple-Indicator Cluster Survey – MICS4) carried out by UNICEF and the relevant Ministries, found only seven percent of children in Puntland and 11 percent of children in Somaliland had received the required three doses of DTP by their first birthday.

“It is crucial that this vaccine reaches every Somali child in the country,” said Sikander Khan, UNICEF Somalia Representative. “We urge all parents, community, traditional and religious leaders to participate in the immunization activity, to ensure all children of Somalia can benefit from the protection offered”.

Continued conflict in Somalia has resulted in the country having some of the worst health indicators in the world. Child and maternal mortality rates are among the highest in the world; one in every five Somali children dies before their fifth birthday.

The introduction of Pentavalent vaccine means that the children will for the first time be protected against one of the causes of pneumonia, which is one of the leading causes of child deaths. It is the first time in 35 years that children in Somalia are being offered a vaccination that protects them against additional diseases apart from diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), tetanus, measles, polio and tuberculosis which they already receive.

“Both Haemophilus influenzae type B and Hepatitis B are of public health importance,” said Dr. Marthe Everard, World Health Organization Representative in Somalia. “There is little data on the epidemiologic burden of Hepatitis B and Hib disease, or on the burden of diseases from meningitis or pneumonia, but data from neighbouring countries and the developing world indicate that Hib is a leading cause of acute bacterial meningitis and an important cause of severe pneumonia.”

Somalia is the 71st GAVI-eligible country to introduce the Pentavalent vaccine – others include Afghanistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, East Timor, Pakistan or Yemen. By the end of 2014, all 73 GAVI-eligible countries will have introduced it.

The launch of the five-in-one Pentavalent vaccine in Somalia takes place during  the Global Vaccine Summit in Abu Dhabi, co-hosted by His Highness General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi; Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation; and Ban Ki-moon, United Nations Secretary-General. In partnership with GAVI, the Summit will celebrate progress in immunizing children against polio and other life-threatening diseases.

The launch coincides with World Immunization Week as well as the African Vaccination Week. During this week, UNICEF and WHO will conduct a nationwide polio immunization campaign in Somalia to protect children from life-long paralysis caused by the disease.

Note

Hib is a deadly bacterium which is the third biggest cause of vaccine-preventable death in children aged under five worldwide. Hib causes a variety of diseases including meningitis and pneumonia with survivors suffering paralysis, deafness and learning disabilities. Hib disease can be transmitted through contact with mucus or droplets from the nose and throat of an infected person.

HepB is a viral infection that is more than 50 times more infectious than HIV and which claims 600,000 lives every year through chronic or acute liver infections. Babies and young children are most at risk from Hep B, with the virus often passing from mother to child before or shortly after birth, and putting victims at high risk of death from cirrhosis of the liver and liver cancer in later life.

About GAVI Alliance

The GAVI Alliance is a public-private partnership committed to saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing access to immunization in developing countries. The Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry, technical agencies, civil society, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private sector partners. GAVI uses innovative finance mechanisms, including co-financing by recipient countries, to secure sustainable funding and adequate supply of quality vaccines. Since 2000, GAVI has financed the immunization of an additional 370 million children and prevented more than 5.5 million premature deaths. Learn more at www.gavialliance.org and connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

About UNICEF

UNICEF works in more than 190 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. For more information about UNICEF and its work visit: www.unicef.org

In June 2012, the Governments of Ethiopia, India and the United States with UNICEF launched a global roadmap to end preventable deaths of children under the age of five. Since then, under the banner of Committing to Child Survival: A Promise Renewed, more than 170 countries have signed up and renewed their commitment to child survival.

About WHO

WHO helps countries integrate immunization into national health policies and plans and thus increase access to existing vaccines. The Organization promotes new vaccines and new initiatives such as the integrated plan to end preventable child deaths worldwide from pneumonia and diarrhoea by 2025. It works to ensure access to quality vaccines and immunization equipment, notably through the prequalification of vaccines and immunization equipment. WHO is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations system. It is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence-based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends.

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“The rise of the South is unprecedented in its speed and scale,” says the Human Development Report 2013, which uses the term “South” to mean developing countries and “North” to mean developed nations. “Never in history have the living conditions and prospects of so many people changed so dramatically and so fast.”

Meanwhile, the slowdown in economic growth, austerity measures and rampant unemployment in the industrialized world has brought pressure to bear on governments and societies in the North. Global economic and political structures are in flux and the sustainability of the growth spurt in the South is subject to the interrelated issues of governance and public investment.

The year’s report, entitled The Rise of the South: Human Progress in a Diverse World, emphasizes that this change represents a global rebalancing far greater than that experienced during the Industrial Revolution, with the South becoming the main driver of economic growth and societal change for the first time in centuries.

“The Industrial Revolution was a story of perhaps 100 million people, but this is a story about billions of people,” said Khalid Malik, the report’s lead author.

The Human Development Report, released annually by the UN Development Programme (UNDP), assesses the state of human development on the basis of health, education and income indicators, as an alternative to purely macroeconomic assessments of national progress.

The initial report was published in 1990 by its authors, the late Mahbub ul Haq and Amartya Sen, and introduced a Human Development Index (HDI), which had been calculated by UN economists from 1975, and was essentially a ranking of countries based on strides made with a people-centric model of progress.

The HDI became an influential paradigm that would prod economists, government agencies, planners and development experts to rethink the income-based indicators that were in standard use to measure development success.

Launched today in Mexico City by UNDP Administrator Helen Clark and Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto, this year’s report singles out big economies which have shown significant growth over the past 20 years, namely China, India and Brazil. It estimates that by 2020, the combined output of these three countries will surpass the aggregate production of the United States, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy and Canada.

However, the ‘rise of the South’ goes well beyond these economies as more than 40 developing countries have made greater human development gains in recent decades than what was predicted.

Countries such as Indonesia, Mexico, Bangladesh, Tanzania and Yemen all registered significant growth, while nations such as Afghanistan and Pakistan had some of the fastest growth rates in the world with 3.9 percent and 1.7 percent over the past 12 years, respectively.

How has the South achieved such dramatic growth levels?

The report attributes many of the achievements of the South to smart national strategies that have allowed them to engage in the global economy while at the same time implementing social programmes that protect those most vulnerable.

“Economic growth alone does not automatically translate into human development progress,” Miss Clark says in the report’s foreword. Southern States are therefore not just tapping into global trade, but they are also improving health and education services, which have allowed them to sustain their growth. This comes in contrast to policies adopted by many developed countries which include austerity measures and cutting social programmes due to the economic crisis.

In Latin America, many countries have put in place programmes to eradicate poverty and address inequality such as Brazil’s Bolsa Familia, Mexico’s Oportunidades, and Chile’s Chile Solidario. These are conditional cash transfer programmes which offer to increase people’s income as long as they fulfil certain conditions such as visits to health clinics and school attendance.

This combination of policies has allowed the middle class in the South to expand and, by 2030, the report projects that more than 80 percent of the world’s middle class will reside in developing countries and account for 70 percent of total consumption expenditure.

Increasing online and mobile connectivity in the South

Increasing connectivity thanks to greater access to technology is also a factor that has contributed to the South’s growth. Globally, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and Mexico have more daily social media traffic than any country except the US. China also has more than half a billion people accessing the Internet daily through smart phones.

Indonesia, for example, invested extensively to connect its large cluster of far-flung islands to open the country to the outside world, and as of 2010, 220 million mobile phones were registered in a country of 240 million people.

In Africa, Asian-built mobile phones have made cellular banking cheaper and easier, while leading to better market performance and increased profits by small farmers, as seen in Kenya, Niger and Uganda.

Increasing incomes and the diffusion of technology have also given way to a more informed middle class that has social and political expectations, Mr. Malik said in a press briefing on Tuesday, which means that “the relationship between the State and its citizens is changing.”

He warned that if States are not mindful of these expectations, it could lead to social instability, as was the case in 2011 in various countries across the Middle East.

“The turmoil in several countries in the Arab States is a reminder that people, especially the young, who are better educated and healthier than previous generations, put a high premium on meaningful employment, on exercising a voice in affairs that influence their lives, and on being treated with respect,” the report says.

Booming South-South partnerships

The report highlights the increase in South-South trade and partnerships and projects that trade between them will overtake that between developed nations.

“Emerging partners in the developing world are already sources of innovative social and economic policies and are major trade, investment and increasingly development cooperation partners for other developing countries,” Miss Clark said.

China is already influential in Africa through trade investment as well as through assistance and cooperation. Between 1992 and 2011, China’s trade with Sub-Saharan Africa rose from $1 billion to more than $140 billion.

India is increasingly playing a larger role as a supplier of affordable capital goods to other countries of the South. For instance, Indian firms are supplying affordable medicines, medical equipment and information and communications technology (ICT) products and services to many countries in Africa.

In addition, migration between developing countries has recently surpassed net migration from South to North. “In our changing world, solutions are moving across the South, not from the North to the South,” said UNDP Regional Director for Asia and the Pacific, Ajay Chhibber.

However, a substantial share of South-South trade is driven by demand in the North. For example, since 2007, US exports to China and Latin America and the Caribbean have grown two and a half times faster than US exports to traditional markets in the North. A growing “app economy” supported by companies such as Apple, Facebook and Google employs more than 300,000 people whose creations are exported across borders, and developing country economies continue to be sensitive to shocks in the industrialized world.

Women’s education as a silver bullet for sustainable growth

While there has been remarkable progress, the report warns that there are still many challenges ahead for countries in the South, including an aging population, environmental degradation and inequality. Poverty and inequality are particularly worrying, as an estimated 1.57 billion people, representing 30 percent of the population in the 104 countries studied for the report, still live in multidimensional poverty.

The report provides a series of recommendations and, in particular, highlights education for girls as “the closest thing to silver bullet formula for accelerating human development.”

Many of the countries in the South still have dramatic gender disparities, and their challenge will be to boost efforts to allow women to participate freely in all aspects of their society.

“Gender inequality is especially tragic not only because it excludes women from basic social opportunities, but also because it gravely imperils the life prospects of future generations,” the report says, referring to findings which correlate women’s education to greater child survival, healthier children and better access to contraception.

The report also notes that the global system will need to adjust itself to the rise of the South, which is currently largely underrepresented in global institutions. For example, China, which is the world’s second largest economy, has had a smaller voting share in the World Bank than either France or the United Kingdom.

“Stronger voices from the South are demanding more representative frameworks of international governance that embody the principles of democracy and equity.”

Meanwhile, it merits mention that not all countries in the South are racing ahead. Of the world’s 49 Least Developed Countries, many are lagging behind in this revolution. Even as some are beginning to benefit from Foreign Direct Investment of the emerging giants like China, India and Brazil, there is much more to be done in terms of development transformation.

The report observes that there are three drivers of transformation: a proactive development state, tapping of global markets and determined social policy inclusion. Looking back at the inception of the HDI, it appears that countries that started at the same level – India and Pakistan, or Chile and Venezuela, or Liberia and Senegal – have ended up with different outcomes.

“History and initial conditions matter, but they are not destiny,” according to the report.

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Rice fields in Sichuan, China. UN Photo/John Isaac

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To date, six areas in Somalia are in famine, namely Bakool, Bay, Lower Shabelle, Middle Shabelle, the Afgooye corridor IDP (internally displaced persons) settlement, and the Mogadishu IDP community, all of which are in the south. FSNAU warns that the food security situation could deteriorate further in the absence of a massive scale-up in interventions.

Coupled with famine are massive displacements both within Somalia and to neighboring countries. Partners report that, over the past weeks, more than 1,200 people are crossing into Kenya daily.

Many also use alternate routes through Diif and Degelema on the Somali side and Dhadag Bulla in Kenya. Significant numbers of IDPs in both locations on the Somali side of the border are in need of assistance. Estimates are that more than 917,000 Somalis now live as refugees in the four neighboring countries: Kenya, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Yemen. Approximately one in every three was forced to flee this year. Altogether, more than 1.4 million Somalis are displaced within the country, which means that a third of Somalia’s estimated 7.5 million people are displaced.

Not only is Somalia in need of greater access to food, but also safe water, sanitation, shelter and healthcare.

Somalia is facing outbreaks of cholera and acute watery diarrhea (AWD), malaria, measles and pneumonia, mostly in the south. Waterborne diseases are expected to increase with the onset of rains coupled with congested living conditions. Prevailing high levels of severe acute malnutrition (SAM) and under-5 mortality magnify the risk among the most vulnerable population.

The situation requires a massive, multi-sectoral response to prevent additional deaths and the total collapse of livelihoods. Improved access to food to address health/nutrition issues, complemented by access to water and sanitation together with measures to preserve productive assets are among the interventions needed most urgently. Humanitarian partners need to step up efforts to arrest further deterioration in a fragile situation that is expected to persist into 2012. The humanitarian community acknowledges the need to scale up its response and has made some headway, since the declaration of famine in July, in meeting needs by expanding the provision of assistance, particularly in the border areas with Kenya. However, security remains challenging, and incidents like the death of about 100 people in Ceel Waaq, Gedo region following heavy fighting between the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) and Al Shabaab forces on Sept. 11 are a clear example of the volatile environment in which humanitarian organizations continue to operate.

Beyond immediate food relief, partners are also working with governments and other agencies to strengthen the resiliency of communities in drought-prone areas by supporting smallholder farmers and those most vulnerable to changing weather patterns through livelihoods programs.

About Salesian Missions at the United Nations

SOURCES:

UNOCHA Somalia Famine & Drought Situation Report No. 13 (Sept. 14, 2011)

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