Day: April 6, 2022

World Health Day has been observed annually on 7 April, since 1950, to commemorate the anniversary of the founding of the World Health Organization (WHO) two years previously. This year’s theme, Our Planet, Our Health, serves as a timely reminder of the inextricable link between the planet and our health, as the burden of noncommunicable and infectious diseases rises alongside growing incidence of climate-related challenges.

Climate change is manifesting in increasing temperatures, rising sea levels, changing rainfall patterns, and more frequent and severe extreme weather conditions. WHO estimates that more than 13 million annual deaths globally are due to avoidable environmental causes, including the climate crisis.

With direct consequences for the key determinants of health, climate change is negatively impacting air and water quality, food security, and human habitat and shelter. The knock-on effect for the burden of heart and lung disease, stroke and cancer, among others, is evident from statistics that point to NCDs representing a growing proportion of Africa’s disease burden.

In the African Region, NCDs are set to overtake communicable diseases, maternal, neonatal, and nutritional conditions combined, to become the leading cause of death by 2030. COVID-19, along with spiraling obesity, diabetes and hypertension rates, compounds the challenge, highlighting the urgency of a multi-sectoral response.

During the past two decades, most public health events have been climate-related, whether they were vector- or water-borne, transmitted from animals to humans, or the result of natural disasters. For example, diarrhoeal diseases are the third leading cause of disease and death in children younger than five in Africa, a significant proportion of which is preventable through safe drinking water, and adequate sanitation and hygiene.

However, one in every three Africans faces water scarcity, while about 400 million people in Sub-Saharan Africa alone lack basic access to drinking water. About 45% of all child deaths are also associated with malnutrition, which is known to be linked to diarrhoea.

Meanwhile, a heating world is seeing mosquitos spread diseases further and faster than ever before, with serious consequences for African countries which reported 94% of the 229 million malaria cases recorded globally in 2019. Deaths due to malaria in Africa accounted for about 51% of all malaria deaths worldwide.

In 2018, African health and environment ministers endorsed the 10-year Libreville Declaration on Health and Environment in Africa, signed in 2008. This is a WHOsupported framework aimed at promoting government investment in addressing environmental problems that impact human health – such as air pollution, contamination of water sources, and ecosystem damage.

Under the auspices of this Declaration, we, as WHO in the African Region, support Member States to conduct vulnerability, situation and needs assessments, and to create Health National Adaptation Plans (H-NAPs). We also support countries to submit National Adaptation Plans (NAPs), comprising essential public health interventions, to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

Recent examples include the implementation of projects in Ethiopia, Ghana , Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania and Zimbabwe . These focus on issues including climateresilient water and sanitation, assessing the capacity of health facilities to cope with climate-change induced drought, and strengthening health systems resilience.

Many countries have implemented Early Warning, Alerts and Response Systems (EWARS) to identify potential risks for climate-sensitive water- or vector-borne diseases. For example, a dashboard measuring cases exceeding the endemic level helped detect a malaria outbreak in Ethiopia in 2020. A malaria emergency preparedness and response plan was subsequently developed.

With Africa’s population projected to grow to 2.5 billion by 2050, we can expect burgeoning urbanization into areas exposed to natural hazards, and a concomitant increase in associated injuries, disease and deaths. As such, I urge our Member States to urgently initiate adaptation and mitigation actions.

Governments, civil society, nongovernment organizations and communities need to work together, empowering one another to ensure the continued delivery of essential health services during future extreme events, while containing the growing incidence of environment- and lifestyle-related diseases.

We cannot afford to lose sight of the fundamental truth that the climate crisis, the single biggest threat facing humanity today, is also very much a health crisis.

Source: World Health Organization

CAIRO, Apr 6 (NNN-XINHUA) – Gulf Arab states pledged up to 22 billion U.S. dollars, to help Egypt make a balance in global foreign exchange markets, and compensate foreign investments fleeing from the Egyptian treasury markets, on the heels of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

“This is a difficult time for Egypt, as it’s suffering reduced tourism inflows, higher food prices, and greater financing challenges, as a result of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis,” said Hoda Al-Malah, chairwoman of the Cairo-based International Centre for Economic Consulting and Feasibility Studies.

The flurry of Gulf investments into Egypt will help in overcoming a currency crisis and shield the economy against imminent shocks, the economic expert told Xinhua.

The Central Bank of Egypt (CBE) allowed the local currency to drop by 14 percent on Mar 21, after being stable against the U.S. dollar since Nov, 2020, stressing “the importance of foreign exchange (FX) flexibility to act as a shock absorber.”

Al-Malah added, CBE’s move and the Gulf’s inflows will encourage foreign investors to return to Egypt’s high-interest and short-term treasuries, after many investors had withdrawn billions of dollars in Mar.

Last week, Saudi said, it had deposited five billion dollars with the CBE, in light of the kingdom’s efforts to boost Egypt’s economy. Meanwhile, Cairo and Riyadh have signed a deal, aiming to attract ten billion dollars in investments in cooperation with the Saudi Public Investment Fund.

Qatar has also pledged investment deals worth five billion dollars in Egypt, the first of its kind, since the two countries restored bilateral ties in Jan, 2021.

Local media reported that, Abu Dhabi sovereign fund AD, agreed to purchase two billion dollars’ worth of stakes in some Egypt’s state-owned businesses, including large listed banks.

The Gulf Arab states’ bolstering gestures come, as Egypt’s economic challenges were worsened by external factors, the economic expert said, referring to the U.S. Federal Reserve’s decision of raising interest rates by a quarter percentage point, for the first time since 2018, which has caused outflux of billions of dollars of hot money from Cairo to Washington.

“The Gulf help is a very good move for increasing the dollars influxes, preventing a deficit in the balance of payments and promoting economic stability in Egypt, while an inflation wave is hitting the world, sending commodities prices soaring,” Al-Malah added.

Waleed Gaballah, professor of financial and economic jurisdictions at Cairo University, noted that, Egypt and the Gulf states enjoy strong ties amid the existed strategic partnership between the two sides, terming it as a “win-win partnership.”

“Pumping the Gulf deposits; low-cost loans, with the CBE, will boost the reserve and bridge the financial gap confronting the Egyptian economy,” Gaballah said.

The timing of the Gulf support is important for Egypt, as it was seeking a loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), he said, adding that, the Gulf investments and loans will boost Egypt in meeting the IMF’s requirements for increasing the activities of the private sector.

On Mar 23, the Egyptian government requested the IMF’s support to implement their comprehensive economic programme, amid the rapidly changing global environment and spillovers related to the conflict in Ukraine.

Credit rating agency, Fitch Ratings, said in early Mar that, the Russia-Ukraine crisis was likely to raise the cost of external financing for emerging markets, such as Egypt, considering outflows of risk aversion investors.

Gaballah highlighted, Egypt’s economy faces big pressures, saying, “Its imports are nearly double of exports and the revenues of the Suez Canal, tourism, and remittances of expatriates are still not sufficient to cover the financial gap.”

Non-residential investment in Egypt’s local bond market stood at 28.8 billion dollars by the end of 2021, according to official statistics.

Source: NAM NEWS NETWORK

An international agreement under negotiation at the United Nations this week seeks to reduce harm to civilians by curbing the use of heavy explosive weapons in cities, towns and villages.

The Ukrainian city of Mariupol is one of the latest examples of a populated area that has been turned to rubble by the relentless use of heavy explosive weapons. Ongoing bombing and shelling of cities and towns in Yemen, Ethiopia, and Syria, among others, are devastating whole communities and causing irreparable harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure.

Data collected over the past decade show 123 countries have experienced a similar fate. The International Network on Explosive Weapons, a coalition of non-governmental activists, says tens of thousands of civilians are killed and wounded every year using explosive weapons in populated areas. It says civilians comprise 90 percent of the victims.

The coordinator of the network, Laura Boillot, says restrictions must be placed on the use of explosive weapons such as aircraft bombs, multi-barrel rocket systems, rocket launchers, and mortars.

Boillot says direct attacks on civilians and civilian objects are prohibited under the rules of armed conflict and international humanitarian law. She notes, however, the use of explosive weapons is not illegal per se.

“But what we are seeing, and finding is that too often warring parties are killing and injuring civilians with outdated, inaccurate and heavy explosive weapons systems in towns and cities and this is because of their wide area affects, which makes them particularly risky when used in urban environments,” she said.

The crisis and conflict researcher for Human Rights Watch, Richard Weir, is in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv. Weir has seen for himself the havoc caused by explosive weapons on populated areas. He says they have a long-lasting, harmful impact on communities.

“They litter their impact areas with the remnants of their weapons and leave a deadly legacy in the form of unexploded ordnance… The effects of these weapons are devastating. They are present and they are continuing. And that is why these negotiations are important. That is why states need to commit now to avoiding their use in populated areas,” he said.

Activists are calling on negotiators to set new standards to reduce harm to civilians. They say the new international agreement also should contain commitments to assist the victims and families of those killed and injured, and to address the long-lasting humanitarian impact of explosive weapons.

Source: Voice of America