Priority 3. Provide humanitarian assistance for extremely vulnerable people, including refugees, returnees and internally displaced persons.
World Food Programme staff hand out food
rations sponsored by the Government of Canada
In recent years Afghanistan has consistently ranked near the bottom of nations included in the Human Development Index of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)1. Not in dispute, however, is that at least one in four Afghans is unable to get enough food to live an active, healthy life, a consequence of decades of armed conflict, natural disasters and ineffectual governance. Diseases of poverty, such as tuberculosis, are widespread. For several million extremely vulnerable people, however, the daily struggle is even more exhausting since they must also cope with being torn from their homes.
Canadian Objective for 2011: Humanitarian assistance will continue to be accessible to Afghan refugees, and to returnees and internally displaced persons in Kandahar and nationwide.
In partnership with the Afghan Ministry of Public Health, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF implement the third of Canada’s signature projects, the campaign to eradicate polio throughout Afghanistan, one of only four countries where the disease is still endemic. (Two others, India and Pakistan, are within the same region.) This quarter, more children were vaccinated than in previous quarters, and most importantly, the percentage of children deemed “inaccessible” due to security concerns decreased significantly. A vaccination campaign in July reached about 380,000 children aged five and under in Kandahar, and in September a broader campaign in high-risk districts of Kandahar and two neighbouring provinces reached 880,000 children. The percentage of children missed declined from 15 percent in May to under 5 percent in July.
Yet with nine new cases during this quarter bringing the national total to 22 for the year, it is widely acknowledged that the country cannot be polio-free by the end of the year. Canada remains committed to the eradication of polio in Afghanistan and we will continue to report progress toward that target.
The Canadian-supported removal of landmines and explosives in Kandahar moved ahead in July and August, making life safer for the residents of 11 villages by clearing land equal in area to more than 40 football fields. Nationally the number of casualties from such deadly remnants dropped this year to fewer than 50 a month, the lowest level in 10 years. Still the country-wide problem is extensive with estimates that at least 10,000 such hazards are scattered across more than 1,000 square kilometres.
1. Released mere days after the end of the reporting quarter, the 2009 Human Development Index ranked Afghanistan 181st out of 182 countries covered.
