Projects

Short Description:

Overall goal

The overarching goal of the intervention is to promote gender equality with an emphasis on empowering adolescents, eliminating child marriage and supporting the continuum of education for girls (preschool, primary and post-primary).

The intervention has two components:

(1) Child protection: Protection of 16,000 adolescents aged 10 to 19 (girls and boys) in 320 villages;

(2) Water/sanitation and hygiene (WASH): Promotion of girl education (through improving menstrual hygiene management) and improve out of school girl’s knowledge on menstrual hygiene management in host communities.

Expected results

The WASH component will help the Government improve access to drinking water and sanitation, eliminate open defecation and promote good hygiene practices in communities, schools and health centres, especially in rural areas. Against a backdrop of climate change, natural disasters (drought and flooding) and emerging epidemics, UNICEF will focus its efforts on improving equitable access to cost-effective technologies for WASH.

The child protection component will strengthen the political and legal framework around child protection, and improve access to and use of protection services among children at risk of or affected by abuse, exploitation and violence, including in emergency situations. The interventions will focus on the five regions most affected by violence against children, Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (FGM/C), child marriage and the worst forms of child labour, with an emphasis on young and adolescent girls. Other priorities include birth registration and juvenile justice.

Target group / Beneficiaries

Implementing partners (child protection):

Ministry of Women, National Solidarity and Family SP-CNLPE (Permanent Secretariat of the National Council against the Practice of Excision); DGPFG (General Direction for Promotion of Gender and Family)

NGOs (MWANGAZA ACTION, CCFC and Cinéma Numérique Ambulant - CNA)

WASH: Ministry of Water and Sanitation (Central Level and the Regional Directorate of Water and Sanitation in the Sahel Region); Ministry of Education, NGO WaterAid.

The overall direct beneficiaries of this intervention will be 44,500 people, additional 80,000 will be indirectly benefitting.

Activities

- Public awareness and media campaigns, advocacy, sensitization at community level;

- Provision of menstrual hygiene management hygiene kits to school girls;

- Organisation of awareness raising activities in the host communities;

- Provision of scholarships and learning kits to girls at risk of child marriage in post primary school in order to maintain them in the school system;

- Organization of vocational and literacy training;

Context

The programme will contribute to the Government’s strategic vision of development, sustaining peace and security and human rights, and is aligned with the National Socio-economic Development Plan (PNDES) 2016-2020, the African Union Agenda 2063 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

The contribution from the Austrian Development Agency will enable UNICEF to jump-start its support to the National Socio-economic Development Plan (PNDES 2016-2020) through its current Country Programme Document (2018-2020). The strategies and activities are similar to and build on those implemented in 2017 and 2018 with the contribution from the Austrian Development Agency:

1) communication for behavioural change interventions to prevent violence, child marriage and female genital mutilation and

2) menstrual hygiene management in schools to boost the school retention and completion of girls. All these interventions are aligned with the strengthened gender-based programming that is one of the common focus areas of UNICEF and the Austrian Development Agency.