United Nations Specialised Agencies

Politics of Development in Africa

The United Nations

• An international organisation• 192 member countries• Aims

– Development– Human rights– Peace

• UN is made up of different agencies – each one does a particular job

• United Nations Children’s Fund• Helps to meet health and education needs• Provides: textbooks, blackboards, pencils, temporary

classrooms• Provides: safe water, immunisation, mosquito nets,

medication• E.g. School in a Box – meeting educational needs: kits

containing educational materials eg. In 1997 UNICEF sent school supplies to 60,000 children in Zambia after floods destroyed hundreds of schools

• E.g. Feeding Centres – meeting health needs: they provide food for underweight babies and children helps reduce infant mortality.

Feeding Centre in Sierra LeoneSchool-in-a-box

WHO

• World Health Organisation• Helps meet health needs• Provides: health information and education,

immunisation, treatment of diseases, equipment (medicine, mosquito nets…)

• E.g. Anaemia Action – lack of iron can cause high infant mortality. WHO provides iron supplements to pregnant women

• E.g. WHO HIV/AIDS Programme: preventing new cases through education, training health workers, supplying medication

FAO

• Food and Agricultural Organisation of the UN• Helps meet food needs: aims to prevent famine

by improving food production • Provides: does research into farming methods,

sends experts to train African farmers • E.g. More Crop per Drop –

trains African farmers to get the most out of limited water using low tech water pumps, eg. in Burkina Faso

WFP

• Deals with food aid - aims to get rid of hunger and malnutrition– emergency food aid to disaster zones– improving nutrition especially for women and children

• E.g. School Feeding Programmes – providing pupils with a daily meal– Helps pupils concentrate as they are not hungry– Encourages parents to send children to school – E.g. WFP provided food for over 250,000 pupils in Burundi in

2007/2008 – school attendance went up as a result

• E.g. Emergency food aid – WFP has already distributed 20 tons of food aid to refugees in DR Congo, affected by civil war

Literacy levels go up

What’s in a School-in-a-box?

• 5 flip chart pads• 5 permanent markers• 15 ballpoint pens• 25 packets of crayons• 5 boxes of pencil erasers

• 150 exercise books• 25 pencil sharpeners• 25 pencils• 25 plastic rulers• 2 school registers• 20 boxes of white chalk• 20 boxes of coloured chalk • 5 chalkboards dusters• 1 chalkboard ruler• 5 pieces of plywood for use

as a chalkboard• 4 litres of black paint • 1 paint brush.