Norway and UNFPA (the UN sexual health agency) signed a $3.1 million USD (30,000,000 NOK) accord to strengthen sexual and reproductive health (SRH) and gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and response services and systems to meet the immediate and long-standing requirements of susceptible women and girls impacted by the conflict in the north of Mozambique. Norwegian Ambassador Haakon Gram-Johannessen and UNFPA’s Bérangère Boll ratified the treaty.
The multiyear project links immediate service delivery with resilience-building initiatives to decrease unmet wants, lessen long-term hazards, and perk up expansion outcomes. More than 400,000 people in Cabo Delgado, Nampula, and Niassa provinces will benefit, especially women of childbearing age, adolescents, and disabled persons.
“Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are a priority in Norwegian development aid, hence we support UNFPA’s efforts. The right to a healthy body and the autonomy, education, and healthcare to freely choose who to have sex with and how to avoid STDs or unplanned pregnancy are vital for human flourishing and attaining the SDGs, says Norwegian Ambassador H.E. Mr. Haakon Gram-Johannessen.
The project will unite caring interventions with scheme reinforcing and capability increase to continue within a Humanitarian-Development-Peace (HDPN) paradigm that supports long-term sustainable solutions for the north.
The project will use based on demographic data to identify quality service, delivery, and availability gaps and drive evidence-based decision and policy making that prioritises disadvantaged women, girls, and adolescents.
One-quarter of conflict refugees are child bearing women. While the conflict continues, so does their vulnerability to gender-based violence and health effects. UNFPA praises the Norwegian government and people for prioritising women, girls, and adolescents in the north, says Bérangère Boll.
The shutdown of health facilities in eight conflict-hit districts has harmed short of a million people, as well as banished women at risk of delivery problems without maternity care and female assault survivors lacking fast access to protective services or post-rape treatment.
The project will deploy maternal and child health nurses and mobile brigades to provide integrated sexual and maternity services, provide health amenities with vital materials, and reinforce medical appointment systems and ‘one-stop centres’ for preventing and responding to gender-based violence. Norway ranks second in UNFPA core funding for 2021. In Mozambique, UNFPA has cooperated with Norway several years to assist COVID-19 response, reconstruction after Cyclones Idai and Kenneth, and the 2017 Population and Housing Census.