Africa-Press – Botswana. For children from vulnerable households or living in poverty to develop to their full potential, countries must promote economic empowerment.
Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Mabuse Pule said this on Monday when opening SOS Children’s Villages Global Economic Empowerment Validation conference in Gaborone.
He urged SOS and member countries in the Federation of SOS children’s Villages to make a concerted effort to end child poverty through fostering economic empowerment.
Mr Pule said extreme household poverty had been identified as a major factor causing families’ break down, and drastically reducing their ability to offer quality care to their children.
He said SOS Childrens villages’ idea to economically empower disadvantaged households was the most effective ways of addressing the root causes of household poverty and family breakdown.
The vulnerable households needed to be empowered in a range of areas such as skills and training, decision making within the household and wider community, access to and control over resources and ability to organise themselves with others to enhance economic success.
He said many children continued to live in extreme poverty, which negatively impacted their health, social, emotional and cognitive development, behavior and educational outcomes.
Consequently the children tended to suffer from a wide range of health problems, including poor nutrition, chronic disease and mental health problems.
“Across the lifespan, residents of impoverished communities are at increased risk for mental illness, chronic diseases, higher mortality and lower life expectancy” he said.
He said children were the largest age group experiencing poverty, and were likely to be denied opportunity to develop to their full potential if the situation was not changed.
Mr Pule said in the past 20 years, SOS implemented innovative activities and services to address poverty at the household and community level. However the intended impacts on the lives of children and households have only been marginal, he said, and implored SOS member countries to to work together to end child poverty.
They could as a way of achieving that ensure federation programmes were relevant to the needs of the children born in vulnerable families and in the process establish SOS as a credible voice in the development world, he said.
Deputy director, SOS Children Villages, International Office Region ESAF, Mr Bedilu Shegen said adopting the economic empowerment route would reduce families’ and communities’ vulnerability to poverty, increase economic independence and improve everyone’s ability to provide for their children.
He said traditional funding sources like government donor agencies that many NGOs relied upon were being constrained, adding that it was high time SOS Childrens Village positioned itself towards a more innovative and social investment approach for economic growth. SOS Children Villages from across Africa, Asia, Latin America and Central Eastern Europe regions attended the conference.
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