Dubai Cares completes Home Grown School Feeding programme in Ethiopia

DUBAI, 11th August, 2016 (WAM) – A Dubai Cares delegation led by Chief Executive Officer Tariq Al Gurg visited Ethiopia for the closing of Dubai Cares’ Home Grown School Feeding (HGSF) programme. The programme, launched in September 2015, is a component of the philanthropic organisation’s wider Enhanced School Health Initiative (ESHI) pilot programme that is being implemented by the World Food Program (WFP), the Partnership for Child Development (PCD) and SNV Netherlands, along with the Ethiopian government, and the Ethiopian Public Health Research Institute (EPHI). Dubai Cares, a part of Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Global Initiatives, has funded a three-year programme with the objective of improving the education, health, and nutrition, of school children across the Southern Nations, Nationalities, and Peoples' Region (SNNPR). To meet this goal, the funding was used to deliver an integrated programme of Home Grown School Feeding, and Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene (WASH) interventions and deworming treatment in partnership with local farmers to reduce the prevalence of neglected tropical diseases, such as Soil Transmitted Helminths (STH) and Sctistosomiasis. Speaking about the visit and its outcomes, Tariq Al Gurg, Chief Executive Officer of Dubai Cares, said, "Our visit to Ethiopia, and in particular the Wonte Boditi School, has allowed us to clearly see the success of our partners’ efforts. As the programme comes to a close, we can take away many important lessons from our activities, which will help us improve future HGSF programmes. It is also pleasing to see that such an important part of our enhanced school health intervention pilot is meeting the targets we have set. There is much more to be done to support children in the region, but we know now that our plan is working." "His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, has always urged us to reach out to our partners and friends to provide unconditional support to contribute to achieving sustainable growth and effective global development. The UAE and Ethiopia have maintained a distinguished relationship and a strong bond of friendship. The Dubai Cares’ HGSF programme is part of the UAE’s desire to strengthen the long-standing bilateral ties with Ethiopia in creating strong people-to people relations," Al Gurg added. The HGSF programme, which covers ten districts of Ethiopia, has proven to be a success, as targets have been met and more beneficiaries than originally planned have been reached. Today, Dubai Cares supports a total of 58,812 children through its HGSF programme. This has led to a six per cent increase in annual enrolment across the target schools, an improved attendance rate of 96.4 per cent, and a reduced dropout rate of 16 per cent. Through its philanthropic activities, Dubai Cares has also successfully improved the programme’s cost efficiency and strengthened the government’s ability to plan and implement it in the future. The government has allocated a yearly budget for expanding the HGSF programme to reach more children, with an eight million Ethiopian Birr (US$368,355) budget set for 2016. In addition, the Government of Ethiopia has developed a National School Feeding Strategy, which will guide the government in implementing HGSF programmes and will help them allocate budgets and resources accordingly. The government has also applied the lessons learnt from the Dubai Cares HGSF programme to the launch of an Emergency School Feeding Program as a response to the drought that hit the country at the end of 2015. The government allocated 560,000,000 Ethiopian Birr ($25,784,875) to benefit 2.7 million students in the country. In addition, the research conducted by Dubai Cares’ partner, PCD, around the prevalence of worms, has been used to inform an ongoing national government-led mass drug administration. The government has also put in place a strategy for improving the WASH infrastructure and education in schools with the aim of improving the health of children, decreasing the dropout rates among children in schools, and making financing for the WASH programmes more effective. The UAE Ambassador to Ethiopia, Ghazi Abdullah Salem Al Mahri, commented, "We appreciate and applaud the charitable and humanitarian efforts made by Dubai Cares, one of the leading organisations in this field. We thank Dubai Cares for this important and successful programme, which was implemented to meet the health and nutritional needs of children in 80 schools in Ethiopia. The programme has been praised by the Ethiopian government and will become a model for the Ethiopian government to duplicate elsewhere in the future." Mada AlSuwaidi, Senior Country Programme Officer, Dubai Cares said in conclusion, "The programme has shown significant improvements and transformations. The commitment demonstrated by regional governments through the establishment of the School Health and Nutrition Strategy and the national government-led mass drug administration programme, prove that the interest generated expands beyond the programme’s initial scope and objectives. The success of the Dubai Cares programme can be attributed to its sound design, commitment of international partners and the regional governments to scale-up the initiative and expand the its scope." - Emirates News Agency, WAM - http://www.wam.ae/en/news/emirates/1395298689357.html