POVERTY: COTE D'IVOIRE: Meningitis spreads as people scramble for vaccine

KORHOGO, 2 February 2012 (IRIN)

 Photo: Claire Barrault/ECHO
A West Africa meningitis outbreak in 2009-2010 killed over 900 people (file photo)

Eleven people have died from meningitis out of 40 reported cases in four departments across Côte d’Ivoire as of 31 January, leaving people scrambling to access the vaccine for their families.
The Ministry of Health has declared the outbreaks in the departments of Kouto and Tengrela in the north as epidemics, and is providing free vaccinations in both locations through mobile health teams, with the help of the World Health Organization and UNICEF.
Bacterial and viral meningitis are diseases which cause inflammation in layers of the brain and spinal cord, and the former has a high fatality rate.
Residents of also-affected Saminkro in the centre of the country and Kani in the centre-west must pay US$5 each for a vaccination, or $3 if they come forward as a group. Ivoirians in these departments - and in surrounding areas - are lobbying the Health Ministry to bring down prices as many cannot afford to raise enough money to vaccinate their families.
“It’s a question of economics,” Jeremie Ipo, director of the district health centre in the village of Poungbè in Korhogo region, told IRIN. “We can only reduce the price of the vaccine as soon as there are enough people demanding it.”
The government recently abandoned the provision of free health care for all because of skyrocketing costs. While birth deliveries and some immunizations for children under age six are still covered, meningitis is not included.
Côte d’Ivoire is part of the meningitis belt of sub-Saharan Africa, which stretches from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east. A 2009-2010 meningitis outbreak killed over 900 people and infected over 13,000 in Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger and Nigeria.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94783

POVERTY: Côte d'Ivoire one year on

ABIDJAN, 1 December 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Olivier Monnier/IRIN
People scan news headlines in Abidjan, where life for many is back to normal

One year on from the presidential elections that caused conflict across Côte d'Ivoire, ex-President Laurent Gbagbo has been charged with crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court (ICC), tensions have eased in most areas, the economy has improved, and almost all schools have reopened and hospitals are functioning. But reconciliation has a long way to go.
Many feel that international justice, by pursuing Gbagbo and not others, is one-sided. Rifts remain between communities, much of the west remains lawless, and thousands of Ivoirians are too frightened to return home. Many residents are not looking forward to parliamentary elections set for December 2011.
Response to the news of the ICC's arrest warrant for ex President Laurent Gbagbo has been deeply divided. Some are relieved, but many people IRIN spoke to said it smacked of victor’s justice. Many analysts say justice has not been even handed, and that only pro-Gbagbo associates - whether civilian or military - have been charged.
"It's a good thing because it is necessary for the stability of the country, but it is unfair,” said Paul, a financial executive in Abidjan. “Of course Gbagbo has to account for what he did, but he's not the only one - both Gbagbo and Ouattara's camps have had responsibilities in the crisis.” He acknowledged that the solution is not clear-cut: if the ICC pursued President Alassane Ouattara and Prime Minister Guillaume Soro, former rebel leader, the country “would, for sure, face another crisis”.
Others say the ICC is ignoring Côte d’Ivoire’s turbulent history. “If the International Criminal Court wants to run a genuine investigation, it has to investigate what happened in the past ten years, not only during the latest crisis", said Aimée, a recent university graduate who lives in Abidjan’s Yopougon neighbourhood.
Ouattara has pledged on several occasions that Ivorian justice will investigate all sides, and in October the International Criminal Court opened an investigation into alleged war crimes committed by both camps.

Reconciliation
The appointment of former warlords, some of whom are alleged to have committed war crimes, to significant positions in the new national army, Forces Républicaines de Côte d'Ivoire (FRCI), has not always inspired confidence, but such appointments are reportedly a strategy by Ouattara to weaken their influence in the long term, and appears to be having some impact.
A South-African-style Dialogue, Truth and Reconciliation Commission (DTRC), led by former Prime Minister Charles Konan Banny, was inaugurated in September but Ivoirians are sceptical of its ability to heal the country. “Ivoirians don’t really understand how it is going to work,” Patrick N’Gouan, who heads a civil rights umbrella group, Convention for Civil Society, told IRIN, adding that civil society was not adequately consulted on the commission’s membership.
Albert Gerard Koenders, Special Representative of the UN Secretary General in Côte d'Ivoire, welcomes the commission while recognizing that “it faces lots of challenges. There is a need for a nationally led justice and reconciliation dialogue - the UN needs to support this,” he told IRIN at a UN security meeting in Senegalese capital Dakar.
Dismantling the mistrust will not be easy. "I don’t really believe in this idea of reconciliation," said Hervé, a mechanic from the neighbourhood of Blokosso, told IRIN. "Gbagbo's supporters are not yet accepting the situation and too many people are too resentful about what happened."

Security better but violations continue
In the commercial capital, Abidjan, shops and businesses have reopened, the port is busy again, security has improved significantly, the city is being cleaned up, and road works are in progress since former President Laurent Gbagbo's capture on April 11, putting an end to a five-month political crisis in which at least 3,000 people died, according to the International Criminal Court.
But in the west of the country - a region with a long history of tension between indigenous and non-native populations - residents and observers say the security situation is still precarious.
President Alassane Ouattara’s government has not yet been able to bring the west or the north under control - both run by rebel group Forces Nouvelles for 10 years - partly because of the lack of security forces, and weak police and judicial systems, which have allowed a “climate of impunity” to remain, said UNICEF spokesperson Louis Vigneault-Dubois.
The United Nations Operation in Côte d'Ivoire (ONUCI) recorded 26 extrajudicial killings from 11 July to 11 August - the most recent figures available - mostly committed in the west by the Forces Républicaines de Côte d'Ivoire (FRCI), the national army.
A report published by UNICEF and Save the Children on 23 November cited over 1,000 violations, including 415 sexual assaults, committed in Abidjan and the west since November 2010, most of them against women and girls. UNICEF representative Hervé Ludovic de Lys says this is just the “tip of the iceberg”, given that the vast majority of assaults are not recorded.
Violations continue elsewhere in the country too, according to UN spokesperson Touré, who has just returned from Bouaké, in the centre of the country, where he heard “dreadful” reports of sexual abuse from women and girls, including of babies having been assaulted.

 Photo: Olivier Monnier/IRIN A young mechanic in Abidjan waits for clients

UN spokesman Hamadoun Touré said the setting up of eight new UN military camps should help secure the zone.

Military reform
To produce more professional security forces, reform is urgently needed. Planned reforms are underway and include demobilizing thousands of inexperienced volunteers who joined the FRCI during the war, and strengthening the role of the police and gendarmes.
Initial reforms have already diminished the influence of warlords who once operated across the country, and the parallel economy they put in place in the north is no longer working, said an Abidjan-based African diplomat who preferred to remain anonymous.

Elections
Parliamentary elections, scheduled for 11 December, will take place on time, according to Yacouba Bamba, a spokesman for the nation's Independent Electoral Commission.
UN representative Koenders, told IRIN at a regional security meeting in the Senegalese capital, Dakar: “The military, police and gendarmerie have put in place a security plan for the elections... we hope to see open, free and transparent elections in CDI."
Laurent Akoun, general secretary of the former ruling party - Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI) - said no candidates from the party are running because of the continued detention of ex-President Laurent Gbagbo and several civilian and military members of the opposition.
He also cited a lack of dialogue with the government as a problem, and said the party has security concerns. A meeting of the FPI on 20 November in Abidjan was broken up by members of the army and civilians wearing pro-Ouattara T-shirts. "What is surprising is that the government is not trying to deny it or blame those who did it," said Akoun. Security forces continue to crack down on active supporters of Gbagbo.
Upcoming elections are vital to the credibility of President Ouattara and the reconciliation process, but, given the legacy of last year’s elections, many Ivoirians IRIN spoke to are lukewarm.
"I'm not sure I'm going to vote - I'm not interested in politics anymore," said Laurent, a physical education teacher and former political enthusiast in Abidjan's Cocody neighbourhood.

Mixed picture for education, health
Most public schools re-opened at the beginning of the school year, but in the west some remain closed as their teachers have not returned, while some families say they don't have enough money to send their children to school.
Jennifer Hofmann, the education cluster coordinator at the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said despite the government trying to lure the teachers back, many remain in Liberia About 1,000 intern teachers across the country are waiting to be appointed, but Hofmann said some villages in the west may be forced to hire voluntary teachers. Public universities will not open until October 2012 because so many were vandalized in the crisis.
Although all the main hospitals in Abidjan are up and running, staff numbers are slightly lower than before the crisis, and in the west the health situation is “in a state of humanitarian emergency”, with crumbling structures and lack of stocks forcing health staff to work in mobile clinics, said Dr Juma Kariburyo, head of the World Health Organization (WHO) in Abidjan.
Money for healthcare support is “running out” for most WHO partners, and medicine stocks and the equipment needed to run mobile clinics are dangerously low, he said. In the aftermath of the crisis the government announced free healthcare, but such a policy requires an effective funding strategy, which has not yet been thought through completely, Kariburyo noted.

Big business
Overall, the economy is growing - surprising many - and is expected to expand by 8-9 percent in 2012, according to the IMF and World Bank. "We hope that Côte d'Ivoire will once again become the economic motor of the region,” said Koenders.
Several large infrastructure projects are already underway, including a third bridge over Abidjan's lagoon, expansion of an Abidjan-based power plant, and plans for a highway between Abidjan and the city of Grand Bassam, 100km to the east.
The Tongon gold mine in northern Côte d'Ivoire was inaugurated in October and should help the country produce 13 tons of gold a year from 2012, said the ministry of Mines and Energy. The cocoa harvest hit a record last season with almost 1.5 million tons of beans exported.
The IMF and the World Bank have made reform of the cocoa sector one of the conditions for US$3 billion of debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries initiative. The IMF resumed its programme in Côte d'Ivoire and agreed to loans of $745 million, while the World Bank has made a gift of $200 million.
Investors are clearly starting to have confidence in Ouattara’s economic vision, said Ranie-didice Bah, an economist at the University of Bouaké. Since his election the President has travelled widely to promote investment in Côte d’Ivoire and a few Western companies are opening branches in Abidjan, including a French food chain, a high-end bakery, and a furniture outlet.
However, many small firms are “still waiting for the recovery”, noted Innocent N'Dry, an adviser at the economic mission of the French Embassy.
And many are not experiencing the benefits of these gains, while the cost of living is high. "There is work", said Hervé, who runs a garage in Blokosso. "But people don't have money, so they pay half of the cost [of vehicle service and repairs] and give the rest when they can,” he said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=94353

MANUTRITION: Ivory Coast: Ivorian infighting forces UN refugee relocation

TAMBA JEAN-MATTHEW : July 14 2011
A UNHCR statement this week quoted refugees expressing fear for their lives due to fighting among armed rival gangs and which is affecting the distribution of relief aid.
An estimated 2,000 refugees are affected by the relocation from transit centres and villages along the Liberian border with Cote d’Ivoire.
The armed gangs are divided between supporters of President Alassane Ouattara and those of the ousted former leader, Laurent Gbagbo.
The fighting has prevented the regular supply of relief aid by UNHCR to hundreds of Ivorian refugees resulting in instances of starvation and malnourishment.
Mr Jerry Bahgou, a medical officer at the Yorpea Clinic in Liberia’s north-eastern Nimba County, says the rate of malnutrition among children is high and that dozens are being referred to hospitals in the area.
About half of the 100,000 Ivorian refugees reside in border towns and villages in Nimba County
http://www.africareview.com/News/Ivorian+gangs+force+UN+refugee+relocation/-/979180/1201196/-/7yfdgwz/-/

MALNUTRITION: Mali: Ancient wisdom, new knowledge

DAKAR, 11 July 2011 (IRIN)
 Photo: Séga Cissé/IRIN
Women turn to traditional healer Fatoumata Kané when their children are ill

 No one can tell 64-year-old Fatoumata Kané anything new about the plants and tree bark around her town of Banamba in western Mali, but the traditional healer recently learned how to measure a child’s upper arm to detect malnutrition.
Scores of families bring ailing children to Kané each week. She is renowned in the region for her healing powers, but now refers suspected malnutrition cases to the public health centre. The collaboration, initiated by local health agent Oumou Sangaré of Helen Keller International (HKI), is an example of how NGOs are tapping into the influence of traditional healers and local elders to fight under-nutrition.
Across sub-Saharan Africa health experts commonly train traditional healers to detect conditions needing something other than indigenous medicine; the fact is that when illness strikes many people’s first move is to go to the local healer.
“It is always people’s first choice here,” said a doctor in Sierra Leone who requested anonymity. “It’s a custom people are addicted to.”
It is custom, but often it is also the only health care people can afford or physically access. In some countries in Africa and Asia 80 percent of people depend on traditional medicine for their primary health care, according to the World Health Organization.
Often traditional medicine is the answer. Africa has tens of thousands of plant species, many therapeutic, and the basis for effective remedies. Kouamé Koffi Samuel, a chauffeur in Côte d’Ivoire, said he has first-hand experience of women who are expert at healing closed fractures with massage, herbs and incantations. “I’ve seen it - it’s far more rapid and effective than a cast.”
But child under-nutrition is one of the conditions untreatable by such means, health workers say. If a parent does not understand the signs, symptoms and causes, various conditions could be suspected. The Sierra Leonean doctor said some families think immediately of a spell.
“When a child is malnourished people think it’s a witch. When a child is very anaemic they say a witch has drawn all the blood from the child.”
He added: “We need to do more education on this.”
Health experts say one strong conduit for that education are the traditional healers and elderly women who already have people’s confidence.
Traditional healers and grandmothers are the first-line healers in a community
“If [Banamba healer Kané] were to tell a woman not to take a child to the health centre, the woman wouldn’t do it, no matter what,” HKI’s Sangaré told IRIN. “Such is the women’s trust in her.”
Sangaré said she first approached Kané when she noticed that too many malnourished children in Banamba were not getting the medical attention they needed.

Collaborating with local healers
She said initially Kané, who makes her living as a healer, was hesitant but then agreed to talk. They met several times to talk about children’s health; Sangaré explained to Kané the role she could have in detecting malnutrition and helping children get the care they need. “Now she’s had training and she’s helping us detect cases of malnutrition.”
Kané, from her home in the Hamdallaye neighbourhood of Banamba, told IRIN traditional and modern medicine can function well together. “I have practiced for more than 20 years now; the gift I have for healing is not going anywhere. But modern medicine can complement it, and vice-versa.”
Vanessa Dickey, senior nutritionist with HKI Mali, said collaborating with local healers means more children who need medical care will get it.
“Targeting just mothers can get us only so far,” Dickey told IRIN. “People are going to listen to a traditional healer or a grandmother.” HKI also has a project in Burkina Faso to boost maternal and child health through the influence of older women, to whom young women invariably turn for advice on pregnancy, motherhood and feeding their families.
“Our object is to screen as many children as we can to see who needs attention,” Dickey said. “And traditional healers and grandmothers are the first-line healers in a community.”

Traditional plus modern
Nurses and doctors told IRIN it is common to see families consult both a traditional practitioner and a doctor.
Soro Awa, holding her nephew whose mother had recently died in childbirth, talked to IRIN at a Côte d’Ivoire nutritional centre in Korhogo: “Without this centre my sister’s son would not be alive,” she said. Still, she plans to see the local healer once she returns to the village “to protect the child from sorcery”.

 Photo: Aly Ouattara/IRIN
Some people go to hospital and a traditional healer, to cover all possible causes

“Often, people assume someone has cast a spell on a child, not knowing that a child is malnourished or has an illness that can be easily treated at hospital,” said Soro Pènè, from Korhogo’s Waraniené village. “Anyway, I am all for traditional healers because they do have their place in our customs and they are very effective in some cases.”
Salimata Koné, who runs the Korhogo centre, says some parents bring their children in directly without going to a local healer. But as the Sierra Leonean doctor explains, family pressure often weighs in later. “A parent could have a child treated at hospital, then a friend or family member will come round advising that it’s best to also consult the traditional healer.”
“It can be OK if people go to both,” he said. “But only if the traditional healer is competent and knows the limits of his or her capabilities.”
It is not a question of ruling out traditional practitioners, said Dickey. “They can continue to do follow-up. We do urge them not to give malnourished children herbs or teas to consume. The body of a malnourished child is really in chaos; these kinds of plants, which might not harm another person, could be dangerous for a child in this state.”
As in so many circumstances, the hard evidence of a healthier child is the most powerful message, Koné in Korhogo told IRIN. “It’s important not to condemn the practice of going to a traditional healer; we don’t want to frustrate people. But the fact is once a malnourished child regains health after proper diagnosis and treatment, that recovery is concrete proof and has a huge influence on others.”
Recovery is the common objective. “My role is to lighten mothers’ hearts, by helping heal sick children," said Kané. "When a child is healthy, the mother is relieved and things go better in the household.”
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=93199

POVERTY: LIBERIA: Food stocks low for hosts and refugees

DAKAR, 3 June 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Amantha Perera/IRIN
Liberians and Ivoirians are resorting to eating rice seeds (file photo)

Liberian host families and the Ivoirian refugees staying with them are resorting to eating rice seeds intended for this year’s crop as food stocks dwindle in eastern Liberia, according to aid agencies.
Some 182,000 refugees who fled the violence in Côte d’Ivoire, are registered in Liberia, 90 percent of them staying with host families, rather than in refugee camps, according to the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR).
Liberians and Ivoirians are also having to resort to buying imported rice - a coping mechanism usually exhibited far later in the lean season, according to a recent Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) assessment.
Rice prices are 20-25 percent higher than in April 2010, according to the US Agency for International Development’s FEWSNET, further straining budgets in this chronically food-insecure region.
In the first few months of the refugee influx, food distributions were “patchy or nonexistent”, Susan Sandars, Oxfam’s communications and advocacy officer in Liberia, told IRIN; and now, “considerable gaps in the response remain,” she said.
Supply chain problems early on led to cereal shortages, meaning the World Food Programme (WFP) had to lower ration size per family, its emergency coordinator, Jerry Bailey, told IRIN.
Aid agencies have not come up with effective ways to deliver to refugees who are so spread out - sheltering across an estimated 90 villages, said Oxfam’s food security and livelihoods adviser, Nanthilde Kamara.

Challenges
Poor roads, broken bridges, and few available trucks on the commercial market continue to pose problems, said WFP’s Bailey, but response has improved. WFP has bought 10 additional trucks that can navigate difficult terrain, and is making emergency repairs to strategic roads. The organization is also setting up mobile storage units to try to ease distributions.
WFP is distributing regular seed-protection rations to 15,000 Liberians to prevent them from eating their rice seeds, and is delivering general food rations to 100,000 people in Nimba, Maryland and Grand Geddeh counties. Cereal stocks are up - to 2,000 tons - though some say this will not last beyond one month or so.
The government, alongside a number of agencies, including FAO and Oxfam, is distributing seeds and tools to thousands of host families so they can boost their harvest in three months time; Oxfam is also figuring out how best to distribute cash.
Refugees and hosts will need support for a long time to come, estimate aid agencies, as many Ivoirians are still too scared to return home for fear of attacks due to their ethnicity or perceived political affiliation. Many thousands could still be in-country in 2012, according to Bailey.
Given this, they need to shift their responses so they are more appropriate to the context - increasing the number of distribution teams, and setting up more food distribution points in host communities, said Oxfam’s Kamara.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92889

MALARIA: COTE D'IVOIRE: Unrest disrupts malaria prevention bid

DAKAR, 7 June 2011 (IRIN)

 Photo: Nancy Palus/IRIN
Malaria preys on children

The post-election violence in Côte d’Ivoire delayed by several months a distribution of mosquito nets - a pillar of the country’s strategy to combat malaria, a leading killer of children.
Some communities must wait even longer as hundreds of thousands of nets were looted during the unrest.
This is just one example of how the recent conflict has disrupted health services, which were already fragile after nine years of a north-south split.
“This sets us back in our malaria prevention efforts. We were supposed to have done this distribution in December,” said San Koffi Moïse, head of the national malaria control programme (PNLP). The project - funded by The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria - aims to cover all households across the country, he told IRIN.
Health workers, along with NGOs Population Services International (PSI) and CARE, on 3 June began handing out insecticide-treated nets in the northwest and in one southern department. A team with The Global Fund is currently in Côte d’Ivoire to meet with PNLP officials and aid workers to discuss how to proceed.
“We are evaluating the situation to see in what regions we can do distributions,” San said.
More than 100 containers of mosquito nets were pre-positioned throughout the country prior to the October 2010 presidential election. In western Côte d’Ivoire - one of the regions hardest hit by post-election violence - entire containers were carted off and scores were broken into and emptied.

In Duékoué IRIN saw several empty containers next to the government health services building; most state health workers abandoned their posts during the violence and hospitals and offices were also looted. Mosquito nets like those destined for free distribution were for sale in the Duékoué market.
“We don’t know the motive for the looting but it appears the thefts were organized, not just simple acts of vandalism,” PSI representative Rambeloson Lalah told IRIN. “In Toulepleu [near the border with Liberia], entire containers were taken away.”
When things began to heat up before the election, NGOs insured the nets against “political violence”, so they expect to replenish stocks so as to cover the entire country as planned.

Vouchers
The rains have started in much of the country, and with that comes malaria. Ivoirians told IRIN they received vouchers for the nets months ago and are still waiting.
“The people really need mosquito nets right now,” said Miagnet Fatou, nutrition expert at the main hospital in the western town of Danané. “It’s mango season and malaria is hitting hard.” Mango season corresponds with the rains so people commonly associate mango season with the disease.
Miagnet said most of the malnutrition she sees in Danané is linked to malaria.
“People received vouchers a long time ago but they are still waiting... Now they’re seeing nets for sale in the market; they’re not sure what to think.” She said nets sell for up to 1,000 CFA francs (US$2.23) in the market - unaffordable for most families.
“I use mosquito nets to protect my children,” said 32-year-old mother of four Affissatou Diakité in the main city Abidjan. “I got a voucher about six months ago… but then the crisis [stopped the process].”


 Photo: Nancy Palus/IRIN
Looters have robbed Ivoirians of mosquito nets

How many needed?
But even as distribution gets under way, there is uncertainty over the number needed in many areas, as tens of thousands of people throughout Côte d’Ivoire have yet to return home after fleeing violence, said Kouyaté Karim, departmental health director in the centre-north city of Bouaké.
“And some people have told me they’ve lost their vouchers. I’m not saying we’ll have to make a new count from scratch, but this is something we have to be aware of as we proceed.”
He added: “The conflict has brought considerable disorder to the health system and it will take time to get back on track.”
While mosquito nets are not a panacea, their use has repeatedly been shown to reduce severe disease and mortality due to malaria in endemic regions, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Bednet distribution is one part of Côte d’Ivoire’s control strategy, along with prevention measures for pregnant women and ensuring access to malaria drugs.
During 2006-09 PNLP distributed about 2.1 million treated bednets, according to a government report on progress on the millennium development goals. But that is about 10 percent of the number of people at risk, according to WHO’s 2010 World Malaria Report.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92926

POVERTY: COTE D'IVOIRE: Crisis could hit drinking water supply

20 April 2011 (IRIN)
 Photo: Nancy Palus/IRIN
Children in front of the western regional office of water company SODECI

Hundreds of thousands of urban residents in Côte d’Ivoire could be hit by drinking water shortages in the coming weeks, as the post-electoral violence interrupted the supply of chemicals used at treatment plants throughout the country.
The risk of shortages is particularly worrying given the cholera outbreak in neighbouring Ghana, with more than 6,000 cases to date, said François Bellet, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) specialist in the UN Children’s Fund’s (UNICEF’s) West and Central Africa regional office.
Between January and March Côte d’Ivoire’s main city Abidjan saw at least 515 cases of cholera, with 12 deaths, according to Kadjo Yao of UNICEF’s WASH team in Abidjan. It is unclear whether cholera is still infecting people, as surveillance systems are down, the agency says.
“The situation [of drinking water supply] is extremely uncertain - we’re on a razor’s edge,” said Bellet, who is currently in Côte d’Ivoire.
UNICEF and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) are working with the water company SODECI - which provides water in urban centres - on immediate and mid-term solutions to avoid shortages. ICRC helped SODECI deliver treatment products to parts of Abidjan during the severe violence which has paralysed the city in recent weeks, and is helping move needed chemicals to plants around the country.

Treatment chemicals running out
The main western town of Man is one of the urban centres facing shortages. The current stock of treatment chemicals will last till the end of April, according to SODECI’s western regional office.
Man has about 14,000 households connected to the water supply network, but for each household one must reckon on at least 15 users, according to Tondossama Broulaye, SODECI regional director for the west. Beyond that, tap water is resold, UNICEF water experts noted.
“Our supplier in Abidjan closed when the crisis hit and the banks closed in January,” SODECI’s Tondomassa told IRIN. Normally treatment chemicals are shipped to Côte d’Ivoire from Europe and distributed throughout the country via the Abidjan-based supplier.
Tondossama said SODECI’s logistics base in Abidjan’s Adjamé District was ransacked during the post-electoral violence. “There is not a single computer left,” he said.
SODECI’s Tondossama said if chemical supplies are not replenished in time the company would have to start rationing water, so consumers would have piped water for about six or seven hours a day instead of the normal 22.
UNICEF is looking at how to expedite the needed products - primarily chlorine and sulphates - through the newly opened port in San Pedro, but transport and security problems remain significant challenges.
Recently a truck driver delivering a cable for a water plant in the western town of Duékoué was highjacked en route.
Chlorine is highly flammable and so the large quantities needed cannot be transported by aircraft.
As in immediate measure UNICEF has begun regular treatment of household wells and education campaigns to show people how to treat water at home with locally available means, including bleach and solar disinfection. UNICEF treated wells in Bouaké at the end of March for some 250,000 people, Bellet said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92533

POVERTY: Core principles for aid providers

Mark Tran 14 April 2011 : guardian.co.uk


The latest blueprint for aid work outlines four basic principles that aid organisations should focus on in their work

 Photograph: Ahmed Jallanzo/EPA : Ivorian refugees wait for medical treatment at a Médicenes sans Frontièrs (MSF) clinic in a refugee camp. New standards for the humanitarian sector to improve its response to armed conflict and disasters were unveiled on Thursday.
In his review of how Britain responds to humanitarian disasters, Lord Ashdown highlighted a familiar failing among aid agencies: how they sometimes seem to be trying to advance their own agendas rather than concentrating on the needs of the people they are trying to help.
Others have accused aid agencies of "jostling for position" and putting their own interests above those of the victims, as the Lancet said in a caustic editorial on the humanitarian response to the Haiti earthquake. Nicholas van Praag, writing on the Poverty Matters blog, chided relief groups for running aid programmes without gauging how beneficiaries feel about them, ignoring the simplest test of client satisfaction. So it is timely that Thursday sees the launch of new standards for the humanitarian sector to improve its response to armed conflict and disasters.
The latest Sphere handbook, considered the blueprint for aid work, includes a fresh chapter on "protection principles" that urges organisations to consider the wider impact of their actions.
The first principle is: avoid exposing people to further harm as a result of your actions. Dr Unni Krishnan, disaster response policy co-ordinator for Plan International, and a member of the Sphere board, cites the example of the floods in Bihar in 2008 that affected more than 1.4 million people. The floods were not the result of monsoon rains but of a breach in embankments that had been built by the government to protect people.
"This disaster demonstrates that 'good intention' alone is not good enough," said Krishnan. "Participation and ownership of communities, especially the most vulnerable, like children, are key in development and humanitarian response."
Or as the handbook asks: "What might be the unintended negative consequences of our activities for people's security, and how can we avoid or minimise these consequences?"
The second principle is: ensure people's access to impartial assistance – in proportion to need and without discrimination. It's a fine principle, but sometimes hard to uphold in a situation of armed conflict, as a member of the Sphere board noted.
"In Ivory Coast, the UN has appeared to take sides in the conflict," said Ed Schenkenberg van Mierop, executive director of the International Council of Voluntary Agencies (ICVA). "Local NGOs that were supposed to distribute aid to areas held by Gbagbo's forces on behalf of the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, were forced to return the aid to the organisation. Now too few impartial and independent humanitarian agencies are present on the ground in Ivory Coast."
The third principle is: protect people from physical and psychological harm arising from violence and coercion. This is even more problematical as humanitarian agencies are simply not equipped for this role and have to rely on the authorities. But as the recent case of mass rapes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo underlines, those authorities – the UN in this case – can be found wanting.
The fourth principle is: assist people to claim their rights, access available remedies and recover from the effects of abuse. There are some useful tips such as organising group activities for children in schools, something that is being done in Liberia for Ivorian refugees.
There will be many practical difficulties in implementing these four core protection principles, but they provide a useful reminder for humanitarian agencies to focus on what is important and on the people they are trying to help – and to do so in an appropriate way.
"People in disasters have basic needs like food and water, but aid work is not as simple as service delivery," said Marie Staunton, chief executive of Plan UK. "Humanitarian workers also have a wider responsibility for the human rights of the people they are meant to be helping – such as their right to freedom of movement and their right to a healthy environment. These rights could be limited or violated by the relief they receive, if it is delivered in an inappropriate way."
Or as Krishnan put it: "Relief and rights should go hand in hand. They complement each other."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/apr/14/core-principles-aid-providers-relief-rights

POVERTY: COTE D'IVOIRE: Political gridlock empties pharmacy shelves

 Photo: Alexis Adélé/IRIN: Côte d'Ivoire hospitals are running out of medicines and supplies

ABIDJAN, 24 March 2011 (IRIN) - Thomas Luba, 35, had to spend half a month’s salary on his latest kidney dialysis – 10 times the usual cost. Medicines are falling far short of demand as sanctions block vessels carrying supplies from Europe.
“Normally I should have two treatments per week,” he told IRIN at the Treichville Teaching Hospital in the commercial capital Abidjan. “But since the beginning of March I’m able to get just one; the hospital is facing difficulties and has imposed higher fees [25,000 CFA francs or US$54 instead of 2,500 CFA francs]… Clearly I am at risk of dying.”
Hospital and pharmacy workers told IRIN that many medicines and other supplies were scarce weeks after the European Union applied sanctions, blocking vessels arriving at Côte d’Ivoire’s ports. About 90 percent of medical supplies in the country come from Europe – 80 percent by sea, according to Christine Adjobi, health minister in the cabinet of incumbent president Laurent Gbagbo.
“We are headed toward a suspension of surgeries in our hospitals,” Rachel Duncan, head of the central distributor Pharmacie de la Santé Publique (PSP), told IRIN. She said PSP was facing a stock shortage of 60 percent. “This embargo is strangling us.”
The World Health Organization (WHO) has provided some medicines to health centres – particularly in the west – and emergency and trauma kits to some NGOs, but it is not enough, Mamadou D. Ball, WHO representative in Côte d’Ivoire, told IRIN. “It is far from meeting the needs of the entire country.”
Health officials said it was not just sanctions but the closure of banks and disruption of the state’s financial system that had squeezed supplies.
In early March, Adjobi said an inventory of public health facilities showed dialysis kits were already running out and there remained about four months’ supply of antiretrovirals, anti-malarials and antibiotics and one month’s worth of surgical gloves, blood and X-ray film.
The Treichville hospital cannot do a single X-ray for lack of film, director Ezani Kodjo told IRIN. “This is pure torment and if nothing is done it’s only going to get worse.”
On 19 March, at a health centre in the town of Bécouéfin, 85km south of Abidjan, IRIN saw a doctor tell a woman in labour he would help her buy the necessary medicines and other supplies. But when he went to the nearby pharmacy he could not find everything he needed.
People are likely to turn to traditional medicines, said Geoffrey Koné, 27, suffering from malaria. “If we come to health centres only to find the medicines we need are not there, better to return to traditional healers.”
Medical students and faculty in Abidjan demonstrated in front of WHO’s office on 3 March; the next day health professionals held a sit-in there, calling on institutions to separate political from social affairs. The students plan to demonstrate again if the situation does not improve, according to their leader Serge Nando. “It’s inhuman and we are going to continue fighting this until we have won our cause.”
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=92268

POVERTY: COTE D'IVOIRE: Women bring food to market, against all odds

 Photo: Alexis Adélé/IRIN
Men and women unload plantains at Marché Gouro in Adjamé

ABIDJAN, 17 March 2011 (IRIN) - Vegetable seller Caroline Tibet recently lost about US$420 in aubergines, cassava and okra when gunfire broke out near the truck just loaded up with her goods near the town of Duékoué in western Côte d'Ivoire.
"My investment went up in smoke," she told IRIN. That has not, however, stopped Tibet and hundreds of other women in the commercial capital Abidjan from braving gunfire, curfews and ubiquitous and often dangerous roadblocks to keep the city's central food market stocked.
"The risks are enormous," she told IRIN at the Marché Gouro in Adjamé District - where people from all over Abidjan come for fruit and vegetables daily. "But if we gave up, there would be nothing in the markets and the people would feel the crisis even more sharply."
The vendors travel regularly to plantations in the west. These days their schedules are largely shaped by curfews. "Once night falls, all of us - sellers, drivers - sleep under the trucks," Tibet said. "At sunrise, once roads are open again, we set off for Abidjan." In normal times, women said, even if people finished loading up a truck at 1am they would drive back.
These constraints take their toll on family life. "It's a huge sacrifice we make," Chantale Abou, a mother of three, said. "We barely see our children."
But the women remain positive. Plantain seller Bernadette Trazié Lou told IRIN: "The crisis has perhaps diminished economic activity but it hasn't undermined our morale to make food available in the markets and avoid famine."
"The most important thing is a return to peace," said Ta Lou Irié, president of the Marché Gouro administrative council. "It's all up to the politicians; they owe us peace so the economy can bounce back."

Price increases
The country's instability is evident in the markets, as food is not as abundant as usual, said one man in Abidjan who requested anonymity. "One sees less of certain items, but all the same food is available in the markets. Prices are higher, that's for sure."
Women in the Adjamé market said their costs had soared, so prices would inevitably follow suit.
In the market, shoppers are constantly calculating what they can afford for the family food basket that day as they learn the new price of this or that item.
"The higher prices are not down to the vendors," Lou Irié told IRIN. "We must pay for the tractors and vehicles to recover and transport our plantains, yams, aubergines, tomatoes, peppers." Transport costs have skyrocketed largely due to an explosion of roadblocks. Despite paying the equivalent of $160 to be in a "secured" convoy, women lose a good deal of cash to extortion on the roads.
"Moving goods from the plantation used to cost me 20,000 CFA francs [$42] a load; now it's 35,000 CFA francs," said Trazié Lou. She said 1,000 CFA francs used to buy five bunches of bananas, now just three.
Vendors in other parts of Abidjan often have to go far out of their way to bring food from Adjamé, said a resident of the largely pro-Alassane Ouattara district of Anyama. "[Laurent] Gbagbo militants usually block women as they are leaving Adjamé to bring food to Anyama, so the women have to take a huge detour."
Marché Gouro (Gouro is an ethnic group in the centre-west) is the epicentre of the Ivoirian Federation of Food Producer Cooperatives, which has some 200,000 members - men and women.
Members said consumers might see a slight drop in prices soon as the federation had just obtained lorries of its own and so would be able to cut out truck rental costs.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportID=92213

POVERTY: COTE D'IVOIRE: Cocoa ban latest worry for growers

 Photo: Monica Mark/IRIN
Growing conditions have been ideal for a good harvest

ABIDJAN, 17 February 2011 (IRIN) - An embargo on the export of cocoa beans in Côte d’Ivoire is curbing income for the country’s 900,000 growers, the latest to be caught in the crossfire of the political fallout.
Presidential claimant Alassane Ouattara on 23 January called for a month-long ban on cocoa exports, one of several tactics being deployed by his internationally recognized government to increase pressure on Laurent Gbagbo, who refuses to quit office.
Analysts say most of the estimated US$120 million needed to run a skeleton economy - paying salaries at the expense of infrastructure and development - usually comes from the key sectors of cocoa and petroleum. Cocoa brought in US$1 billion in foreign exchange receipts in 2006, versus $1.3 billion from oil and other refined products, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
About six million Ivoirians rely on cocoa production to survive. The country exported 1.2 million tons last year, roughly 40 percent of global supply, according to the International Cocoa Organization (ICC). But as the Ivoirian economy continues to be hit by political turbulence, any targeted financial measures will require a delicate balancing act to avoid squeezing vulnerable farmers.
Many growers said they support the ban, but remained anxious about how long it would last. Although the main cocoa harvest is collected from September to March, another smaller crop is gathered between March and August.
“The majority of us are smallholders from the north or centre of the country. These are the people who feel the ban is all part of the process of a revolution,” Maurice Savadogo, a cocoa farmer in the eastern town of Abengourou, told IRIN.
It’s just a shame that ordinary citizens have to suffer the brunt of a political crisis that should have been over by now
Ouattara’s popular support is strongest in the north of the country. His November win was the result of an alliance with former president Henri Konan Bédié, who garnered large pockets of votes in central-eastern regions of the country.
“But if the ban is extended until March, things will be enormously difficult for us. At the end of the day we are just planters; we feel very vulnerable,” Savadogo said.

Latest headache
Gbagbo’s government has described the ban as an attempt by Ouattara’s government to illegally impede growth in a vital industry where production is on the rise. “Forecasts for this season’s harvest could top 1.2 million tons,” Gbagbo spokesperson Ahoua Don Mello told reporters, saying Ouattara’s request to ban cocoa exports was “disastrous”.
The current financial squeeze means growers have not been able to benefit from the tail end of a bumper crop forecast this year. Cocoa beans registered for export at the country’s ports were up 16 percent year-on-year, reaching 905,000 tons in the week ending 30 January, figures from the cocoa and coffee board (BCC) show.
“Growing conditions this year have been ideal for a good harvest”, farmer Blaise Ouraga from the western growing belt of San Pedro told IRIN. “But the cost of fertilizers and weed-killers is unaffordable for us these days. And that’s not surprising when you see that the cost of transport, food, everything has gone up in the last couple of months. A ban is the latest headache.”

Black market
Meanwhile, middlemen who buy the beans from farmers have used the ban to undercut the BCC recommended farmgate price - the price farmers are paid for their produce, set at roughly two US cents per kilo. A black market has sprung up for those wanting to cash in on the jumbo crop, Fulgence N’Guessan, president of the Union of Cooperatives of Côte d’Ivoire (Ucopexi), told IRIN.
N’Guessan said 2,000 tons of cocoa had been transported out of the bush in the last two weeks, with farmers being forced to accept prices of around one US cent per kilo of beans.
“Farmers don’t have the conditions to keep beans for more than about three weeks. Some prefer to sell at a low price rather than risk not being able to sell mouldy beans at all later.”
“And the buyers factor in the risk they are taking, the fact they’re using their own personal money and so on, to push down the prices,” N’Guessan, who also runs export company Kavokiva, told IRIN.
Official BCC figures put average farmgate prices at 1.7 US cents per kilo for the week ended 31 January.
In Abidjan’s usually bustling port, dozens of lorries are parked - the most visible sign of European Union financial sanctions. Their drivers, who transport produce inland as well as to landlocked neighbouring countries Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger, sleep underneath the vehicles as they wait for business to pick up again.
“It’s just a shame that ordinary citizens have to suffer the brunt of a political crisis that should have been over by now,” said Adamu (not his real name), an official at an international cocoa company, gesturing at the eerily quiet port. Most multinationals have respected Ouattara’s request and are laying low, he added.
“The industry is worth billions, so of course beans are still being bought. There are big warehouses at the port that can store beans for a long time, but because it’s all unofficial farmers aren’t being paid a good price.”
Cocoa continues to leave the country via established smuggling routes to the east in Ghana or northwards to Burkina Faso, Adamu added, echoing reports from other farmers and cooperative owners.
“It is those farmers who are feasting at the table of those dominating politics who are benefiting from this situation,” said a grower in Daloa, the heart of the cocoa belt. “They’re a minority, but they’re the ones crying loudest for the ban to end while benefiting,” he told IRIN.

http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91950

POVERTY: Could Ivory Coast turmoil make chocolate more expensive?

By Mark Gregory : BBC News

  Ivory Coast's cocoa farmers will find a way of getting their beans to market

Chocolate lovers everywhere have reasons to be nervous about the political turmoil in Ivory Coast. The West African nation produces nearly 40% of the world's raw cocoa.
And without cocoa, of course, there would be no chocolate.
Already the wholesale price of this crucial raw ingredient in one of the planet's favourite foods has doubled in the last four years.
And that was before the single largest producer of the commodity began its recent slide towards conflict.
So will Ivory Coast's problems push up the price of a bar of chocolate in the shops?
In some respects they already have.
The current stand-off between incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara, the man held by the United Nations to have won recent elections, follows years of tensions.

'Sapped confidence'
"The tensions have starved Ivory Coast of investment and sapped the confidence of cocoa growers," Laurent Pipitone, an expert in economic issues at the London-based International Cocoa Organisation, told the BBC.

Cocoa Highs and Lows


Dec 2009: $3,510/ tonne; Nov 2010: $2,666; Dec 2010: $3,000
Cocoa accounts for 6-8% of cost of chocolate bar

"It takes three years for a cocoa bush to become productive after it's been planted," he says.
With the political outlook uncertain, farmers in Ivory Coast have been less willing to take the financial risk and put in the effort required to grow more cocoa, which means the country's productive capacity has gone into gradual decline. This has been one reason why world cocoa prices have risen in recent years. But intriguingly, the general view among analysts seems to be that the latest escalation of political tension will not make matters much worse than they already are. That is partly because of the nature of cocoa production. Ivory Coast's crop is produced by thousands of independent small farmers. The chances are that in the short term they will carry on working, whatever the political environment.
"The farmers need the income," explains Mr Pipitone. "They may stop planting new cocoa plants but they won't stop producing with what they've already got," he says. He also believes the growing political crisis will not stop the farmers getting their products to market.

Disease impact
If the normal channels for selling their products get closed off by unrest in the main city, Abidjan, Ivory Coast's farmers will simply move more of their cocoa in small quantities across borders into neighbouring countries where they can sell it, he believes. However, the international price of cocoa has risen about 12.5% since early November as a direct consequence of the problems in Ivory Coast.

Cocoa is traded in two places: London and New York. The price - currently around $3,000 (£1,900) a tonne in New York - is still actually a lot lower than it was in the early part of 2010.

  The election dispute has sparked protests and violence In New York, the price hit a 30-year high of around $3,510 (£2,350) a tonne in December 2009. In London, the peak came a few months later in July. At those times the world really was facing a real prospect of a cocoa shortage, which made the price shoot up. The key issue then was not so much political uncertainty in Ivory Coast - though that was a factor - but the impact of disease. Ivory Coast is the world's largest cocoa producer but Ghana and Indonesia are also important players. This time last year, Ghana's cocoa industry was battling against "black pod" and "swollen shoot", while Indonesian farmers were up against "VSD" (Vascular Streak Dieback). Chocolate lovers will be relieved to know that all these forms of disease appear to be on the wane. Indeed, this year, after a run of poor harvests, Ghana's cocoa farmers have enjoyed a bumper crop.

Higher exports from Ghana are expected to partly offset any shortfall from Ivory Coast. Ivory Coast has suffered similar disease issues to neighbouring Ghana but not to the same extent. Its problems have been more of a political nature. The net effect is that cocoa prices are higher than they were several years ago, partly due to the ongoing impact of tensions in Ivory Coast. But prices are not as high as they were a few months ago when the main issue was disease in Ghana and Indonesia.

'Changed recipes'

The international price of cocoa has risen by 12.5% since November So what does all this mean for the cost of a bar of chocolate? It is hard to know exactly. Cocoa is the ingredient that makes chocolate special but industry experts say the raw ingredient only accounts for 6-8% of what the consumer pays for the final product. The rest is partly the cost of other ingredients such as sugar and milk, but more importantly it includes manufacturing, distribution, advertising and the chocolate makers' profit. Nonetheless, analysts say high cocoa prices over the last few years have had an impact on the way chocolate is made and sold. It is reported that some manufacturers have changed their recipes, reducing the amount of raw cocoa they use.
Others have reduced the size of the products they sell while keeping the price the same. The pricing strategies used by the world's major chocolate makers are, it seems, every bit as complicated and hard to unravel as the political intrigues in Ivory Coast.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12047762

POVERTY: COTE D'IVOIRE: Political impasse sparks food price hikes

  Photo: Alexis Adélé/IRIN:  Vegetable sellers say many would-be clients walk away when they hear the cost of goods

ABIDJAN, 28 December 2010 (IRIN) - While political rivals in Côte d’Ivoire trade barbs, diplomats make declarations and regional groups issue warnings, many Ivoirians are eating less so they can feed their children, as prices for basics like cooking oil, rice and flour climb, in some cases doubling.
For now the crunch is hitting mostly poor families, Ivoirians in the commercial capital Abidjan told IRIN. This is a growing population group: In 2008 nearly half of Côte d’Ivoire’s then 20 million people were below the poverty threshold of about US$1.25 per day, compared to about one-third in 2000, and 38 percent in 2002, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
“Poverty has increased on a steady trend [in the past 20 years] as a result of the successive socio-political and military crises,” IMF said in a May 2009 country report.
“We’re at the end of our tether,” Françoise Mahan, a midwife in Abidjan’s Abobo District, told IRIN, one month after the presidential run-off election which ended in unprecedented deadlock with two political camps claiming power. Already after the October first round, tensions led to some prices creeping up.
“I can no longer get what I need at the market with 2,000 CFA francs [$4] for my family of three. Now I need about 50 percent more - but at the moment we just can’t afford that.”
Food prices are soaring in Abidjan and other main cities. In the northern city of Odienné and in Gagnoa in central Côte d’Ivoire, before the election crisis a kilogram of sugar cost the equivalent of about $1.25. It now costs $2.40; and the same goes for a litre of cooking oil. A sack of rice now costs around $35 in Odienné and the centre-north city of Korhogo; families could buy the same sack before the political crisis for around $26.
In Abidjan a kilogram of meat cost $2.80 before; now prices range between $4.40 and $5.
As the government of the internationally recognized president, Alassane Ouattara, called for a nationwide strike to begin on 27 December - to try to force incumbent President Laurent Gbagbo to step down - many Ivoirians are simply trying to make ends meet.
“We heard about the strike call,” said a youth in the central town of Gagnoa. “But it’s the holiday season and some people wanted to come out and try to make at least a bit of money.”
Karim Koné, petrol station attendant in Abidjan’s Adjamé District, said he eats less per day to make whatever food the family has go further. “I’ve started depriving myself of food during the day. I prefer to leave whatever I’d eat in the middle of the day for the family’s evening meal.”

Snowball effect
People’s lack of buying power is hitting vendors and this is having a snowball effect. “Before, I could make about 15,000 CFA francs [$30] a day, but since about a week ago that’s impossible,” said meat vendor in Adjamé Ousmane Diallo. “People just aren’t buying.”

  Photo: Monica Mark/IRIN :  "Everyone's having a tough time," said one vendor

In Abidjan’s wealthier neighbourhood of Cocody, Fatim Touré sat waiting for clients. “Many people just turn around when I tell them the prices,” she told IRIN. “But it’s not the vendors’ fault; with this crisis, hauliers are charging more for moving vegetables into Abidjan.” She said a sack of aubergines which used to cost her $20, now cost $26.
For now petrol prices, which fluctuate periodically, have not yet risen significantly during the crisis; but chauffeurs told IRIN given the instability fewer drivers are venturing out and transport prices – for both passengers and goods – are up.
“Some of our colleagues have not come out because of the strike,” Abidjan taxi driver Drissa Fofana told IRIN. “But we’ve got to feed our families. The situation is tense so we take the risk; we’ve doubled our tariffs, even if petrol prices have remained the same.”
Cooking fuel is costing families more: In Abidjan a 12-kg bottle of propane gas that went for about $9, now costs about $13. A market vendor in Gagnoa told IRIN charcoal there used to be $10 a sack; now it’s double that.
“Everyone's having a tough time, so one really can’t blame the vendors,” said the mother of seven who sells juices and other items in a Gagnoa market. The crisis has simply worsened what was already a bad situation for her family; she said her husband is unemployed and they cannot afford to put their children in school.
Higher-income families in Abidjan are able to keep extra food at home just in case of further unrest. Some said the most significant impact for now is that they feel confined to their homes.
“Every week we stock up at the supermarket, just in case,” bank executive Bertrand Comoé said. “I don’t allow the children to be out after 6pm. Everyone is home by that hour; it’s like a prison. It’s stressful, but we have to do what we can to avoid the worst.”
A 5 December joint statement by the African Development Bank and World Bank expressed concern about the political situation’s impact on the average Ivoirian. Having re-engaged in Côte d’Ivoire in 2008 after suspending relations in 2004, the World Bank has closed its office in the country and stopped disbursing funds since the election crisis.
“The sustained crisis in Cote d'Ivoire will drive many more Ivoirians further into poverty and hurt stability and economic prosperity in the West African sub-region,” the statement said.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=91472

POVERTY: COTE D'IVOIRE: On-hold aid projects set to resume

29 September 2010 (IRIN) - The World Bank says it will give a record US$540 million over three years to finance post-conflict recovery and development projects in Côte d'Ivoire.

Aid agencies hope the money will enable several on-hold projects to resume after an almost five-year election impasse that has set back the country's development prospects. [[http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportID=90367 ]

The UN Children's fund (UNICEF) says many of its projects have been on hold until World Bank funding is confirmed, including a project aimed at special needs children, according to communications director Louis Vigneault-Dubois.
"What happens [now] depends on if we and the Ministry of Education are able to get adequate funds," he told IRIN. 
 Of the total allocation, the World Bank announced it will channel $20 million to provide health care for people living with HIV; $120 million for post-conflict rebuilding; and $13 million to improve government transparency. The bank is carefully targeting money to specific projects and aid partners, due to "mistakes" made in the past, its Côte d'Ivoire director, Madani Tall, told reporters in Abidjan.
Altogether, donors committed $750 million to the country between April 2008 and July 2010.

Poverty in Côte d'Ivoire has risen steadily over recent years: 39 percent of people lived on less than US$2 a day in 2002, versus 49 percent in 2008, according to the World Bank.

Tall said the World Bank needed to continue to support what it called the "backbone" of West Africa. Elections are due to be held on 31 October.



Http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?ReportID=90622

MALNUTRITION: Liberia; the issue of ignorance

International organisations and the government must look at the problem of malnutrition in Liberia as an educational challenge rather than just a health issue in order to save children's lives.The United Nations estimates that 44 percent of childhood deaths in the country are due to malnutrition, making it the most common cause of child mortality.U.N. agencies have warned that if efforts to address key nutritional problems such as children being underweight, stunted growth or micronutrient deficiencies are not accelerated, some 78,000 Liberian women and children will die and 87,000 babies will be born mentally retarded."The problem is that people do not know that the problem is occurring and only learn that their children are malnourished after the child is brought sick to hospital and nurses diagnose malnutrition," said Samson Azorquoi, the acting medical director of Phebe Hospital in Bong county, central Liberia."The war has ended but the nutritional crisis has not ended," he added.Phebe Hospital runs a major nutrition recovery centre supported by the United Nations Children's agency (UNICEF) that serves thousands of people, including those from neighbouring countries like Guinea and the Ivory Coast.On a recent visit there, two of its patients, Josiah and Josephine, 17-month-old twins were being treated in a ward for severe acute malnutrition cases. They were tired and in tears with rising temperatures. Their mother - who did not want to be named and said she did not know her own age - looked overwhelmed by the circumstances at times."They just fell sick and when I brought them here the nurse told me they had to be admitted," said the mother of four.Her eldest son, who is 4 years old, had also suffered from wasting and had been brought in for treatment. But now she knows what she needs to give her children to keep them healthy.
http://www.alertnet.org/db/blogs/58388/2010/04/18-162547-1.htm

MALNUTRITION: Ivory Coast, due rebels

MANKONO, Ivory Coast — Eight-month-old Aminata Sanogo weighed little more than a newborn as her mother took the severely malnourished baby to the hospital, traveling past marketplaces piled high with mangos and avocados. By the time they arrived, it was too late.
Aminata died some 20 minutes after arriving at the hospital in this town in northern Ivory Coast. Unlike outbreaks of mass hunger in some other parts of Africa, it wasn’t due to a lack of food in the area.
It was due, in part, to the rebels who set up roadblocks in the bush and extort money, including from farmers bringing their produce to market. Farmers consequently raise their prices to eke out a profit, pushing the cost of many types of food beyond the reach of impoverished families.
Locals say the land here is so fertile that growing food is as simple as dropping a seed on the ground and spitting on it. Yet when the British medical aid group Merlin set up an operation in Ivory Coast’s Worodougou district last June, almost one in 10 children under 5 was suffering from severe malnutrition.
http://blog.taragana.com/health/2010/04/30/children-malnourished-in-ivory-coast-because-of-inflated-food-prices-civil-war-legacy-22341/

DDT

In a book launched on Wednesday, Donald Roberts, professor of tropical medicine at the U.S. military's Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences, and Richard Tren, head of lobby group Africa Fighting Malaria, argue that DDT is the only effective weapon against the deadly mosquito-borne parasite.
Environmental group Greenpeace defended the United Nations' aim of eventually eliminating DDT use worldwide and said evidence that it harms wildlife and human health was sound, even if not conclusive.
DDT's unprecedented power to kill insects won its inventor a Nobel prize in the 1940s and it was considered a wonder chemical until evidence emerged of its toxicity to wildlife and people, leading Western nations to ban it in the 1970s.
A treaty to forbid its use worldwide along with a dozen other industrial chemicals came into effect in 2004, but some countries like South Africa and Ethiopia still take advantage of tightly limited exemptions allowing indoor spraying.
Dichloro-diphenyl-trichloromethylmethane (DDT) has been blamed for birth defects in humans and threatening endangered birds such as the bald eagle by thinning their egg shells.
"There are an almost endless list of claims that DDT causes one kind of harm or another but ... with each claim, the evidence that the DDT is the cause is simply not there," Roberts told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"The Excellent Powder" claims new evidence shows DDT is harmless because it is similar to organic chemicals found in nature that animal life can deal with.
The book also tackles the issue of resistance to the poison, saying DDT is a good repellent, not just killer, of mosquitoes.
Malaria kills roughly a million children a year, mostly in Africa, according to the World Health Organization.
In the tropical West African nation of Ivory Coast, malaria kills 176 children under five each day, the government's top malaria official, Dr Sam Koffi Moise, told Reuters.
"The challenge is to give access to better prevention. We need mosquito nets but also insecticides like DDT," he said.
Roberts and Tren's book examines a 2009 study linking DDT in South Africa to birth defects and argues the data doesn't support it.
"Millions of malaria deaths ... occurred during ... decades of environmental activism (against) DDT," the book concludes.
Tren, a free market lobbyist who has also criticized tobacco control, said bird species harmed by DDT were already under threat and that DDT was "a minor source of harm compared to the hunting, shooting, poisoning and land use changes."
Greenpeace scientist David Santillo told Reuters greens approved use of DDT where there was no alternative, but evidence of it accumulating in birds and polar bears was clear, and evidence of harm to humans worrying enough to urge caution.
"If we're to wait until we have absolute confirmation that (health problems are) a direct result of DDT exposure that's something we'll probably never have because you can't expose humans deliberately to DDT to measure the effect," he said
"There's a need to develop a broader range of malaria controls to break this reliance on DDT ... as a silver bullet."
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE63K3CJ20100421

Ivory Coast

29-Mar-2010]
Malnutrition is the root cause of many childhood diseases in Ivory Coast where one out of three children will not live to celebrate their fifth birthday. The global food crisis has intensified chronic malnutrition. Fatoumata is Silue's ninth child and weighed only 2.2 kilograms at six weeks. Her mother took her to the UNICEF-supported Red Cross's Therapeutic nutrition centre in Korogho. Available video includes a narrated news package.
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