Category: COVID-19

PAX kicks-off $3.9M project to push for anti-GBV legal frameworks

PAX South Sudan with support from the German Federal Agency for Foreign Affairs has launched a project that aims to empower women to influence legislation and judicial processes to end Sexual and Gender-based violence.

The project, titled: “Empowered Women Influence” with financial support of about 3,630,652 euros from the German government will be implemented by six partners in the next three years in Eastern Equatoria, Upper Nile State, Unity State, Warrap, and Northern Bahr el Ghazal States.

The Project will solely provide technical training every year to 50 female parliamentarians, 3 female-led Civil Society Organizations, and 40 women advocates on legislation processes, Judiciary processes, democratic principles, reconciliation processes, and advocacy.

“This project is going to combat social-cultural causes of sexual and gender-based violence in South Sudan. This is the most important contribution of this project where the funding has been allocated

“It is a 3-year project that is going to run from 2023 with inception that we are starting today at the launch and is going until 2026,” said PAX, the Country Director Emmanuel Kani.

The German Ambassador to South Sudan Christian Sedat expressed optimism about the role the project will play in transforming the situation of women and girls in the country.

He called on the national government to join hands in allocating resources for gender transformative initiatives.

“I invite the transitional government to join us by allocating the necessary resources to gender transformative initiative. This will help translate the national government’s commitment to greater gender equality and a tangible improvement of the situation of women and girls in South Sudan.”

For her part, the Deputy Director for Gender at the National Ministry of Gender, Child and Social Welfare Susan Wasuk Felix expressed the government’s gratitude for the project launched.

“We appreciate the support the Embassies are putting on the government of South Sudan and the national and international organizations that are supplementing the activities,

“This is the role of the government to implement such projects but the limitation of resources with the government institutions, is why you have been coming in and we appreciate you for not having sleepless nights to ensure that the people of South Sudan are supported at all levels”.

Roselyn Gama is the Gender Project Officer at the Netherlands Embassy she stresses that women’s participation in top leadership is still a challenge in South Sudan.

She believes the project will contribute to capacitating women in leadership positions for the upcoming elections.

“Women participation in top leadership is still a challenge, we all know that and I believe the six women who are in this room advocating for legal frameworks will use this opportunity to push for the Anti GBV Bill, Family Bill, and other important Bills such as the Enterprise Bill that are still pending

“And if we talk about women’s influence, I believe that economic empowerment has a big say in this in South Sudan.

‘So I believe that the influence through this project will not only be able to contribute to the peace process but capacitate you in preparations for your leadership positions in the upcoming elections.”

 

 

 

 

Museveni jokes he’s now a ‘veteran of corona’

Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni has addressed the country’s parliament virtually and continued to challenge social media reports that he was seriously ill and in intensive care.

The president, who was diagnosed with Covid-19 last week, tweeted on Wednesday

that he was free of symptoms, although he has continued to test positive over several days.

He thanked Ugandans who have been praying for him and sending messages for his quick recovery.

He joked that he was now a “veteran of corona”.

His virtual address was a first, because if he was Covid-free, the president would have physically addressed parliament during the reading of the national budget.

Finance Minister Matia Kasaija, who delivered the budget speech, told parliament that the country’s economy is expected to continue recovering from the effects of the pandemic.

The size of the economy is now estimated at about $50bn (£39bn) and is projected to grow at a rate of 5.5% in this financial year.

The government aims to create 2.5 million jobs in the next five years, according to the budget speech.

Mr Museveni said that the strategy would continue to focus on infrastructure, industrialisation and value addition to agricultural products for economic growth.

Covid: World’s true pandemic death toll nearly 15 million, says WHO

The Covid pandemic has caused the deaths of nearly 15 million people around the world, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates.

That is 13% more deaths than normally expected over two years.

The WHO believes many countries undercounted the numbers who died from Covid – only 5.4 million were reported.

In India, there were 4.7 million Covid deaths, it says – 10 times the official figures – and almost a third of Covid deaths globally.

The Indian government has questioned the estimate, saying it has “concerns” about the methodology, but other studies have come to similar conclusions about the scale of deaths in the country.

Graphic showing the breakdown of global excess deaths, with 57% male and 43% female as well as showing middle income countries having the highest proportion of excess deaths at 81%

The measure used by the WHO is called excess deaths – how many more people died than would normally be expected based on mortality in the same area before the pandemic hit.

These calculations also take into account deaths which were not directly because of Covid but instead caused by its knock-on effects, like people being unable to access hospitals for the care they needed. It also accounts for poor record-keeping in some regions, and sparse testing at the start of the crisis.

But the WHO said the majority of the extra 9.5 million deaths seen above the 5.4 million Covid deaths reported were thought to be direct deaths caused by the virus, rather than indirect deaths.

A chart showing by how much excess death are higher than official reported Covid deaths, with Egypt at the top with 11.6 higher, India second with 9.9 times higher and Pakistan third with the excess death toll eight times higher

Speaking about the scale of the figures, Dr Samira Asma, from the WHO’s data department, said “It’s a tragedy.

“It’s a staggering number and it’s important for us to honour the lives that are lost, and we have to hold policymakers accountable,” she said.

“If we don’t count the dead, we will miss the opportunity to be better prepared for the next time.”

Alongside India, countries with the highest total excess deaths included Russia, Indonesia, USA, Brazil, Mexico and Peru, the WHO figures suggest. The numbers for Russia are three-and-a-half times the country’s recorded deaths.

The report also looks at the rates of excess deaths relative to each country’s population size. The UK’s excess mortality rate – like America, Spain and Germany – was above the global average during 2020 and 2021.

Graphic showing the excess deaths rate by country based on WHO estimates, with Peru at the top on 437, Russia on 367 and South Africa on 200. The global average is 96 and China, Japan and Australia show up as having registered negative excess deaths

Countries with low excess mortality rates included China, which is still pursuing a policy of “zero Covid” involving mass testing and quarantines, Australia, which imposed strict travel restrictions to keep the virus out of the country, Japan and Norway.

The academics who helped compile the report admit their estimates are more speculative for countries in sub-Saharan Africa, because there is little data on deaths in the region. There were no reliable statistics for 41 out of 54 countries in Africa.

Statistician Prof Jon Wakefield, from Seattle’s University of Washington, helped the WHO and told the BBC: “We urgently need better data collection systems.

“It is a disgrace that people can be born and die – and we have no record of their passing.

“So we really need to invest in countries’ registration systems so we can get accurate and timely data.”

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