Norway gives away $3.1 million to safeguard Mozambique's children and women

The Norwegian government has handed the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) $3.1 million to help guarantee the wellbeing of Mozambique's girls and women scarred by violence in the country's region.

The fund will help UNFPA enhance assistance for response and protection from gender-based violence and reproductive and sexual health crisis.

A press release by UNFPA shows the plan will run till 2024 and "connects instant delivery of service with adaptability initiatives to minimize lacking needs, mitigate long-term threats, and enhance performance outcomes. It will assist more than four hundred thousand individuals from displaced and host communities in Niassa provinces, Nampula, and Cabo Delgado, with emphasis on individuals with disabilities, youths, adolescents, and women of childbearing age.

  According to Haakon Gram-Johannessen, Norway's Mozambique ambassador, "reproductive and sexual care and entitlements are the key focus in Norwegian development cooperation, and it is a pleasure we can assist UNFPA's essential endeavors."

 He went on to say that "everyone's entitlement to a body free from sickness, as well as the independence, schooling, and medical services to freely choose their sex partner an STD or unwanted pregnancy prevention, are critical for human advancement and the accomplishment of the SDG."

The program is intended to respond to the government of Mozambique's northern retrieval and perseverance techniques. 

It will rely on statistics to "discover holes in quality of service, access, and dissemination, likewise deliver proof-based decision and laws that takes vulnerable girls, youth, and women into consideration during implementation. Since 2017, Islamist extremists have compelled approximately 800,000 residents to evacuate their houses and source of income in some areas of the northern Cabo Delgado province. 

Inasmuch as Mozambique's security and defense forces, with the assistance of the Rwandan army delegation and troops from SAMIM (SADC Military Mission in Mozambique), have recorded progress in driving the extremists from the country, many are still observing from afar for stabilization before coming back home.

Berangere Boell, UNFPA Mozambique's Resident Representative, stated that "Childbearing women account for a quarter of those impacted by the violence.  Their necessities can't be neglected, and with the progression of the violence, so does their threat to health complications and gender violence grow".

According to UNFPA, the fighting has forced the closure of medical centers in 8 districts, affecting over 500,000 individuals, including "homeless females that experience higher childbirth complications without being attended to by obstetrics and women victims of conflict who could experience huge threats without instant access to after-rape support."

Norway is one of UNFPA's 5 largest contributors, coming second in UNFPA's 2021 donor ranking. UNFPA in Mozambique has collaborated with Norway to finance programs related to the response to Covid-19, Cyclones Kenneth and Idai recovery, the Population and Housing Census in 2017, and a United Nations joint program to protect people living with albinism.