Switzerland extends grand to help Tanzania fight malaria

The Swiss has given a grant to the government of Tanzania to their fight against malaria. Switzerland gave 2.7 billion dollars to help bring more treated nets to the people. The announcement was recorded by the Tanzanian newspaper The Daily News.

Switzerland has extended a grant of 2.7bn/-to Tanzania for scaling up the use of insecticide treated nets in the region, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs, Mr Ramadhani Khijja, has said.

Mr Khijja said during a signing ceremony held in Dar es Salaam yesterday that the grant would help reduce the number of deaths from malaria, particularly among children and pregnant women. He said the grant would also go a long way to supporting efforts by the Ministry of Health and Social Welfare to better coordinate the Tanzania National Insecticide Treated Nets (ITN) Programme.

"The agreement shows Switzerland's commitment to support Tanzanian government in its aim of improving the health and well-being of all Tanzanians especially those in rural areas, the poor and vulnerable," he said. The Swiss Ambassador, Mr Adrian Schlaepher, said the funding was aimed not only at sustaining but also strengthening the National Malaria Control Porgramme as a viable institution.

Youth poverty a ticking time-bomb

from Tribune de Geneve

Almost half the recipients of social benefits in Switzerland are under the age of 25, notes a youth commission that urges changes to remedy the situation.

The Swiss federal commission for children and youth (CFEJ) has denounced the growing precarious financial situation faced by young people and called for action. Close to one in two recipients of government social aid in the country are under the age of 25. The poverty and social exclusion of children and young people remains a largely “taboo” subject, the commission said in a report this week.

But 45 percent of recipients dependent on social benefits are young people, compared to just 1.5 percent for seniors over the age of 65, the commission said. The social system has forgotten the under-25s who account for 100,000 of the country’s poor, said Pierre Maudet, a Geneva resident and president of CFEJ. The situation is a ticking “social time bomb” ready to detonate, according to the group.


Among the principal factors leading to the dire social conditions is difficult family situations brought about by unemployment and a large number of children. It is necessary to focus particular attention on children, with targeted measures, said Chantal Ostorero, an expert in social issues from Vaud. The CFEJ has proposed 55 recommendations, including making the government more responsible for assuring access to the workplace for young people. Seventy percent of young people receiving social aid have not received job training. The commission recommends establishing a national fund to finance such training.

Young people are also increasingly hobbled by debts. To address this issue, the commission suggests that credit companies devote one percent of their annual revenues (SFr5-6 million a year) to counseling young people about budgeting and avoiding debt.

OECD demands more Swiss development aid

from Peace Journalism

The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has demanded Switzerland to increase its development aid from 2009, Swiss Radio International (SRI) reported on Thursday.

In a report published on Thursday in Berlin, OECD looked at its overall aid volume and examined whether donors were on track to reach their goal of increasing aid to 130 billion U.S. dollars globally and doubling aid to Africa by 2010.

The report said Switzerland's contribution of 0.44 percent of gross national product (GNP) in 2005 was 0.03 percent below the average of the 22 member countries that make up the OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC).

In absolute figures, Switzerland was 14th among the 22 donor countries, with a contribution of 1.77 billion Swiss francs (about 1.43 billion U.S. dollars) in development aid in 2005.

Although Switzerland's 2005 contribution was in line with the objectives it set, from 2009 new funding goals have to be established and volumes re-thought, OECD said in the "Development Cooperation Report."

The United Nations has called on countries to raise spending to 0.56 percent of GNP by 2010 and to 0.7 percent by 2015 to combat global poverty.

The Swiss government has pledged to meet the percentage set out in the UN Millennium Development Goals. But NGOs have accused it of artificially boosting its aid figures by adding assistance to asylum seekers from developing countries in Switzerland.

The latest OECD report said donors would have to increase funding for aid programs faster that any other public expenditure in order to fulfill their commitments to increase aid to 130 billion U.S. dollars and double aid to Africa by 2010.

Aid funding, recently rising by 5 percent per year, would have to rise by 11 per cent every year from 2008 to 2010, it stated.

The majority of European Union member states have committed themselves to raise contributions to 0.7 percent of GNP by 2015, and four have already achieved that target, according to the report.

Helping young adults avoid the poverty trap

from NZZ Online

Welfare and social institutions have called for coordinated efforts to prevent young adults from falling into the poverty trap.

A large number of young people are dependent on welfare, with 18:25 year olds comprising the second largest group drawing benefits.

The Conference of Social Institutions wants to increase social provision, including apprenticeship positions for teenagers with learning and other difficulties.

On Wednesday it proposed extending compulsory schooling or training by two years to 18 in a bid to make up for shortfalls in education and counter higher rates of unemployment among young adults.

"Welfare benefits and social aid do little to help these youngsters because it all comes too late," said the organisation's president Walter Schmid. "By the time we intervene, they have already suffered failures or been turned down a number of times."

Job prospects for young adults who have neither worked nor pursued an education between the end of compulsory school at age 16 and their 20th birthday are not good, he added.

Just under four per cent of 18: to 25:year:olds, mainly in urban areas, draw on welfare, making it the largest group after children to receive some kind of social aid. According to the organisation, this is because these people have failed to enter the job market.

Schmid said the strategy being put forward would require the involvement of social institutions, as well as the economy, the educational authorities and the state.
Integration

Social aid experts also recommend individual support for youngsters about to enter the job market.

Other proposals include increased involvement of parents, pre:school screening and special efforts to further integration of the children of immigrants.

Experts warned that integration problems for young foreigners ? a sign of missing social and communication skills : must be headed off early.

They added that the measures proposed are the most efficient means of helping the target group, despite the high costs.

They could also prove much cheaper in the longer term, as they would keep welfare costs down and, in many cases, also reduce disability benefits.