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UN food agency plants seeds for the future in southern Sudan school construction project

UN food agency plants seeds for the future in southern Sudan school construction project

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The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has launched a $3.5 million construction project to build 25 schools in southern Sudan, where primary school attendance rates are the lowest in the world.

More than 20 years of civil war, ending in January 2005, destroyed most of southern Sudan’s infrastructure, where estimates show that only 20 per cent of children attend primary school. Of those who do, just one third are girls.

These troubling statistics prompted WFP to add school construction to its list of recovery projects across Sudan, where the agency is working to feed up to 6.1 million people this year in an emergency operation.

“For me, it has been very moving to see the foundations of a WFP school being laid. They also serve as the foundations for the future of thousands of young southern Sudanese lives,” said WFP Executive Director James Morris visiting the building site of one of the schools.

Employing 100 teachers and catering to over 10,000 students, the construction project is in line with the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – a set of global antipoverty targets adopted in 2000 – and the policy of the Government of Southern Sudan, both of which call for universal primary education. The project also complements WFP’s School Feeding Programme, which aims to increase school enrolment and attendance by giving children a free meal when they go to class.

WFP has already partnered up with the Norwegian Refugee Council and German Development Corporation to build four schools following donations from the United States, United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

“This is one of the best examples of the humanitarian community working together to improve lives,” Mr. Morris said.

Meanwhile in a separate development related to southern Sudan, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) reported on Wednesday that nearly 500 people in the region have died from cholera over the past six months, with the epidemic recently spreading north to the Khartoum area, causing 77 deaths since April.

The Sudanese Ministry of Health has formed a task force, including the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and WHO to coordinate the overall response to the epidemic, including strengthening the surveillance and reporting systems, standardizing case management and promoting health education and hygiene, with the chlorination of public water supplies.