Dear Excellency:
The COVID-19 pandemic is posing a global challenge on a massive scale and has brought developmental and humanitarian work to almost a complete halt. Africa’s attempt to provide and engineer accelerated development for its people through Agenda 2063 seems to be severely hampered. At the time of writing this letter, the confirmed cases of CPOVID-19 in Africa was over ten thousand. The crisis will overwhelm national health systems, badly damage economies and put millions of children at significant risk of harm. Children especially girls face increased threats of gender-based violence, discrimination, abuse and lack of essential services.
We are cognisant of the fact that, His Excellency President Matamela Cyril Ramaphosa, President of the Republic of South Arica, in his capacity as Chairperson of the African Union, convened a teleconference of the Bureau of the African Union Heads of State and Government, ahead of the G20 Leaders’ Summit video-teleconference on 26 March 2020, where he underscored the fact that poverty, poor sanitation, an existing disease burden, overstretched health systems and extreme urban population density mean that the pandemic could explode in an even more catastrophic way than has been seen thus far in Africa. Hence the need for urgent action in order to stem the tide. We applaud the Bureau for agreeing to establish a continental anti-COVID-19 Fund to which member states of the Bureau agreed to immediately contribute US $12, 5 million as seed funding.
The African Union Liaison Offices of the following organisations: International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF), Plan International, Save the Children International, SOS Children’s Villages International, UNICEF and World Vision International do recognise and appreciate the effort and the leadership demonstrated by your Excellency and the African Union to coordinate and drive responses to COVID-19. We would like to express our organisations’ commitment to support interventions aimed at responding to COVID-19 at the continental and national levels. Our hearts go out to families and children who have been impacted and affected by COVID-19. Our organisations would like to share the following concerns:
- – People living in fragile, conflict and disaster-affected contexts are acutely vulnerable to the direct and secondary impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- – The COVID-19 pandemic is deeply affecting the environment in which women, girls and all children grow and develop, undermining their immediate protection and longer-term wellbeing and resilience.
- – Crisis affected populations, particularly refugees, asylum seekers, internally displaced people and people on the move, risk being excluded from national COVID-19 preparedness and response plans. Refugees and asylum seekers also risk having their rights disproportionately violated.
- – The COVID-19 pandemic is deeply affecting the environment in which girls and all children grow and develop, undermining their immediate protection and longer-term wellbeing and resilience.
- – Measures to limit the spread of COVID-19, including movement restrictions and border closures are already limiting access for humanitarian personnel and assistance, and resulting in the disruption of services and supplies essential for adolescent girls’ health, safety and wellbeing.
- – Closure of schools and other educational settings in response to the COVID-19 pandemic will present a further barrier to learning, and deprive children, especially girls of a protective environment and source of life-saving information and psychosocial support.
- – Human rights violations and abuses by law enforcement agencies in an effort to enforce measures being adopted by member states.
- – The situation is negatively impacting the economic situation of significant number of populations particularly the livelihoods of vulnerable people who depend on daily subsistence for survival.
- – Caregivers experiencing significant stress may not provide appropriate care and protection for their children. Children
who lose caregivers to the virus will be vulnerable to violence and exploitation.
In light of the foregoing, Your Excellency, we would like to make the following recommendations to the AU Commission and Member States:
- – Measures taken to control or respond to the spread of COVID-19 must be equitable, protective of human rights and humanitarian principles, non-discriminatory, and responsive to the different needs and risks faced by individuals.
- – Protection must remain central to the response to COVID-19. As a result of various COVID-19 control measures including government shutdown/ lockdowns, it is envisaged that Child protection risks and risks of gender-based violence will escalate. It will therefore be important to grant access to assess, monitor and respond to these cases in all settings including, displacement camps, host communities and in quarantine situations (including use of disaggregated data age, sex and disability, geographic location including versus urban).
- – The needs of all children without parental care and those in different forms alternative care, unaccompanied and separated children in areas affected by the outbreak must be addressed, by ensuring good record-keeping and referral systems from health providers, according to international standards and respect to the principle of confidentiality and diversity sensitive care in the best interest of the child.
- – We urge governments to expand current social protection systems to increase coverage and benefits to children in all forms of alternative care and families in heavily virus-affected communities. Quarantine measures should be accompanied by financial or material support to affected low income households and/ or communities.
- There is need to waive any potential restrictions to accessing reproductive health services that disproportionately affect women living in poverty, women with disabilities, undocumented migrant women, adolescents, trans and gender non-binary people, and women at risk of or who are survivors of domestic and
sexual violence.
- • National and local authorities must ensure that planning and decision-making processes related to the response to COVID-19 incorporate the voices of all population groups affected by the outbreak and its secondary impacts. This includes strengthening the leadership and meaningful participation of girls and young women in all decision-making processes.
- • It is critical that lifesaving humanitarian activities can continue as far as possible within the context of measures to control the outbreak. In line with recommendations from the Inter-Agency Standing Committee, governments should consider granting travel exemptions for humanitarian staff to stay and deliver critical, life-saving humanitarian interventions to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
- • Governments should observe all human rights protocols in all responses to the situation as articulated in international and regional human rights conventions
- • Governments should contextually consider implementing economic stimulus packages that will revive formal and informal economic sectors as well as those highly affected population groups.
- • Urgently scale up global COVID-19 prevention and response measures for children and their families to strengthen health systems, maintain essential health service delivery, equip frontline health workers, engage and communicate effectively with communities including children, and provide critical child protection interventions and mental health and psychosocial support,
- • Adopt policies and fund COVID-19 response plans that holistically address the secondary impacts of the pandemic on children and families, particularly with respect to child protection, gender-based violence, education, water and sanitation, food security, and livelihoods.
- Our organisations are working with national governments to respond to COVID-19. At the continental level, our respective organizations commit to work with the African Union in its effort to address and respond to the COVID-19 challenge.
The Ethiopian Herald April 28/2020
BY MOUSSA FAKI MAHAMAT
(Chairperson, Africa Union Commission)
