Improve handling of ATM in Lagos says NGOs - NaijaAgroNet

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How to improve the handling of ailments related to AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (ATM), topped the agenda of the Lagos State Advocacy Team (SAT) of the Association of Civil Societies on Malaria, Immunisation and Nutrition (ACOMIN) reports NaijaAgroNet.

Speaking at the advocacy visits on Tuesday, the ACOMIN chairperson and State Coordinator, Lagos State Advocacy Team (SAT) Mrs. Bunmi Tejumola, said improving quality of lives in communities across the state of excellence in particular after the COVID-19 effect has become necessary.


NaijaAgroNet gathered that the advocacy visits took the team to the Rauf Aregbesola Primary Health Centre Egbeda in Mosan Okunola Local Council Development Area (LCDA) of Alimoso Local Government Area and Shomolu Local Government Area’s health department.

At the Aregbesola PHC, Mrs. Tejumola applauded the efforts of the councilors in rehabilitating the health centre to an acceptable state including cleanliness efforts and increase in medical personnel.

She also demanded on behalf of her team made up of ATM Project Manager, Ms Tope James, TB coordinator, Mrs Aipo Ifelunwa, Mr Patrick Akpan, coordinator NEPWHAN, ITREALMS media team lead, Remmy Nweke, and Alhaji Tella Tajudeen, among others; for more ambulance vehicles for the PHC and additional staff in order to serve the community better.

She commended the Bale of the area for living up to his promise in collaborating with them on this project.At the office of health department of Shomolu LGA, the ATM team made case for more staff to carter for the teeming clientele across the Akoka and Abode Primary Health Centres respectively.

The State Coordinator appealed for more consumable kits to be made available at both PHCs to ensure the safety of both medical personnel and patients visiting and using the facilities.

Welcoming the team earlier in Aregbesola PHC, the Supervisory Councilor for Health at Mosan Okunola Local Council Development Area (LCDA), Prince Akeem Adeyemi applauded the collaboration so far which have yielded some results in supporting the health centre.

Responding specifically on the call for more ambulance, Prince Adeyemi revealed that the Senator representing that constituency at the red chamber, Senator Solomon Olamilekan Adeola, alias Yayi has promised to donate an ambulance to the centre in no distance future.

Equally responding at Shomolu, the Medical Officer of Health (MoH) Shomolo LGA
Dr. Agbaola Ibidemi Christy expressed thanks to the team for finding out time to visit and raising crucial issues, capable of advancing the health deliverables in the LGA and state at large.

She promised to escalate most of the issues to the LGA chairman for prompt remediation, assuring that by the time of their next visit, a huge difference will have been made based on their recommendations, while those within her office will be expedient action upon, immediately.

Speaking during a vote of thanks at Somolu, Mr. Akpan appreciated the warm-welcome extended to the SAT team and encouraged the government to always see NGOs as partners in progress.

NaijaAgroNet further reports that the advocacy visits were part of the Post-COVID-19 resilience project sponsored by the Global Fund and National Agency for the Control of AIDS (NACA) towards combating HIV-AIDS, TB and Malaria in some five LGAs of Lagos State. These LGAs include Alimoso, Eti-Osa, Somolu, Ikorodu and Mushin.


Chuks Egbune/Editor

Safe water: Lagos, USAID to improve access, supply - NaijaAgroNet

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To improve access to safe water, the Lagos Water Corporation (LWC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to have a holistic revitalization of the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) for the residents.

This was revealed during a working visit of USAID team led by Dr. Joechim Ezeji to LWC on the Lagos Urban Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (LUWASH) at the LWC 45 million Gallons per Day (MGD) Iju Waterworks.

Improve nutrition funding in Nigeria says CS-SUNN - NaijaAgroNet

NaijaAgroNet:

The Civil Society Scaling-Up Nutrition in Nigeria (CS—SUNN), has urged the three tiers of government in the country to make certain adequate budgetary allocations on nutrition activities, reports NaijaAgroNet.

A communiqué issued at end of a 3-day workshop , the Civil Society Organisation (CSO) called on government to ensure adequate and prompt release of the nutrition budgets in order to facilitate necessary provisions for the treatment of drugs for the handling of malnutrition issues ravaging children under 5 years old.

The workshop with the theme; "the journalists' role in ensuring transparency and accountability in allocation and use of health/ nutrition funds in Nigeria", was aimed at building the capacity of media practitioners in reporting issues of nutrition

Endorsed by Salihu Mohammed Alkali and Priscilla Dennis, chairman and secretary of the Communique Committee, respectively, described as unacceptable, the record of over 2000 of children under 5 dying daily as a result of cases of malnutrition.

Participants also decried the daily 145 maternal death as a result of malnutrition, recognising nutrition as multi sectoral issue admonishing all hands on deck to be able to tackle the menace.

Participants noted that preventing malnutrition is better and more cost effective than curing the problem, regretting that any malnourished child will be resistant to immunisation.

They further urged media to promptly and adequately report malnutrition cases in order to effectively tackle the problem.

The workshop was organised by CS-- SUNN in collaboration with Partnership for Improving Nigeria Nutrition Systems, PINNS.

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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Water, hygiene plus sanitation improve health & romance

NaijaaAgroNet:

Washing hands with simple “tippy taps,” made with easily-available supplies,
 and soap or ash reduces the spread of disease.

Nafisatu Yunusa is excited about change. The 23 year-old mother of three lives in Marafa, a village of just over 600 people in Bauchi State, northern Nigeria, where the dry winter season can be hard. Red dust clouds the sky, vegetation turns brown, and there's no rain for months. 

  Like other rural communities in the region, for a long time, many people in the village of Marafa did not have access to running water or toilets. Without them, open defecation was the norm. Most households had lost at least one family member to preventable diseases such as cholera and typhoid.

Fields and villages were contaminated with feces, which was not only unsightly and malodorous, but was also extremely unsanitary. “Back then, our children were always suffering from diarrhea, typhoid fever, cholera," Nafisatu explains. "It was the biggest challenge we had, it was everywhere."

Information about stopping open defecation has helped to make the village a more attractive – and healthier place to live.

But the establishment of a Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Committee, or WASHCOM, in her village, has transformed Nafisatu's life. The WASHCOMS have been set up in communities in the area under UNICEF’s SHAWN (Sanitation Hygiene and Water in Nigeria) programme, which is funded by the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development (DFID).

Nafisatu works as a treasurer for the WASHCOM and is one of the nine Mafara WASHCOM members who have been trained to teach healthy sanitation practices to others in the community. “Now when a child goes to use the toilet he or she comes and washes hands – with soap, if it is available, or ash,” she says, “and that has contributed a lot to stopping the spread of diseases."  As a result, Marafa has become one of 351 communities that are now certified as “open defecation free” in the Local Government Area of Dass, in Bauchi state. Every household in the community has a latrine and nearby hand washing facilities.

And the SHAWN programme has rewarded the community with a borehole and hand pump, so that water is now easier to access, even in the dry season.

The United Kingdom’s DFID supported this UNICEF project.

The improved sanitation and easy access to water, says Nafisatu, has not only saved lives, but it also helped ease a common strain on marriages in Marafa. Among the good hygiene practices they have been trained to teach, WASHCOM hygiene promotion team members have shared their knowledge with women community members about menstrual hygiene management.

When water is easily available, good hygiene practices are also easier to implement.

Nafisatu recalls that women in the village used to stuff dirty menstrual padding under their beds, which often made the bedrooms smell unpleasant. Their husbands, recounts Nafisatu, would burn spirals of mosquito coils, hoping the acrid smoke would cover the smell. But sometimes, even that wasn’t enough, and Nafisatu said that several husbands even refused to sleep with their wives. 

Now that there is water in the village, and with women having learned about better menstrual hygiene practices, that problem has vanished. “The change has been so overwhelming,” says Nafisatu with a smile, “relationships are much improved!”

23 year-old Nafisatu Yunusa trains her community members 

on good hygiene and sanitation practices.

Photo credit for all pictures: UNICEF/Nigeria/2017/Stefan Heunis

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EU signs N22.086trn grant with Zambia, improves access to energy

NaijaAgroNet:

The European Union (EU) has signed up the sum of €65 million, about N22,086,252,500.00, grant with Zambia to improve access to energy, reports NaijaAgroNet.

This programme, NaijaAgroNet gathered would provide access to reliable, clean and affordable electricity services to at least 63,000 households, or about 300,000 people, to social and public infrastructure and to eligible Micro Small Enterprises (MSEs), which will be done through the rehabilitation and expansion of the low voltage distribution network in selected low income areas of Lusaka City with high population density.

The financing agreement for a grant of €65 million was signed today in Brussels by Commissioner for International Development and Cooperation Neven Mimica and the Minister of Finance of the Republic of Zambia Felix Mutati. This took place in the framework of a meeting where Commissioner Mimica and Minister Mutati exchanged views on the very good bilateral relations between the European Union and Zambia.

Speaking on this occasion, Commissioner Neven Mimica said: "This €65 million programme demonstrates the continued commitment of the European Union in collaboration with European Financial Institutions (EFIs) to provide the much needed capital investment for basic infrastructure development, in order to improve the livelihood and social status of poor communities in Zambia. 

"The rehabilitation of the low voltage distribution network and the new connections will allow for the provision of reliable and affordable energy services and economic empowerment. The programme will support the implementation of the European External Investment Plan which prioritises socio-economic development through infrastructure and energy in particular."

The project is co-financed with the European Investment Bank (EIB), which provides additional loans amounting to €15 Million. It is also part of a larger Lusaka Transmission and Distribution Rehabilitation plan, co-financed by the European Investment Bank, the World Bank and ZESCO Limited.

Currently Lusaka faces challenges, because its electricity network infrastructure results in significant energy losses. This is coupled with an increasing population in high density low-income areas, which is unable to access electricity services due to high connection costs. 

Lack of access to electricity services seriously deprives the affected population, in terms of quality of life and exposure to various hazards that go with it (in-door pollution, unsafe cooking, poor social services, low self-esteem etc..), worsening the social inequality gap between the low density and high density urban areas.

In addition to the rehabilitation and expansion of the low voltage distribution network, the programme includes a connection-fee subsidy scheme to encourage new household connections as well as measures to promote productive uses of electricity by women and Micro and Small Enterprises. These will include facilitated access to micro credit lines and training in business management and entrepreneurship.

Chuks Egbune/GEE

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e-Agriculture, solution to world food crises

NaijaAgroNet:

 A forum co-convened by the United Nations (UN’s) Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has hinted that guidelines to improve the application of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in agriculture, NaijaAgroNet learnt.

This according to FAO officials have gains which could bring innovation in agricultural technology, ensure more efficient food production, mitigate food losses and attract the younger generation to become successful farmers – are close at hand,

FAO Assistant Director-General and Regional Representative for Asia and the Pacific, Hiroyuki Konuma, told NaijaAgroNet in a press statement that the applications of validated e-Agriculture processes will be a great addition to innovative agricultural production, attract young generation in agriculture and help safeguard farmers from losses, especially small holders.

“These applications could range from a farmer using a smart phone to scan the barcode of a packet of certified seeds – something that could ensure quality and a fair price, to the installation of low-cost sensors at the village-level for hyper local weather information. The lack of available and correct information at the right time and in the right format is a major obstacle to many activities along the traditional agricultural value chain and this is something that e-Agriculture could help address efficiently,” he said.

Konuma also told NaijaAgroNet during the opening of an “e-Agriculture Stakeholders Consultation” attended by government officials and researchers, primarily from Asia, Africa and Near East to the three day event in the Thai capital, pointed out that the finalization of the e-Agriculture Strategy Guide and its applications for national context is ongoing.

“Countries have tried to implement e-Agriculture solutions in isolation,” Konuma pointed out. “This guide provides valuable guidelines and offers a template to implement sustainable e-Agriculture services.” Concerns over food losses due to natural disasters, or lack of timely information during planting or harvesting, along with increased pressure for food traceability – all offer entry points for the application of proven ICT interventions in agriculture

Konuma added the e-Agriculture Stakeholders Consultation is co-convened by FAO, ITU and CTA – the Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation

@Cyriacus Nnaji

Cyriacus Nnaji/GEE

 

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