Africa-Press – Uganda. Belgium has announced a financial contribution of €4.2million (about Shs16billion) to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) purposed to enhance mentorship of over 3,000 vulnerable school-age girls in Kampala.
“Belgium aims to demonstrate the impact of innovative financing modalities such as cash assistance in order to help inform the establishment of social protection mechanisms in Uganda,” said Belgian Ambassador in Uganda and South Sudan, Mr Rudi Veestraeten.
UNICEF and Brussels stressed that the four-year contribution to Uganda will support “the ongoing Girls Empowering Girls (GEG) social protection programme implemented in partnership with Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) in the five divisions of Kampala.
Launched in 2019, GEG, “is one of the first programmes providing social protection to adolescent girls in Uganda and represents an important milestone in the government’s efforts to achieve comprehensive social protection that is gender and age sensitive.”
This publication understands that the initiative is in line with Uganda’s Vision 2040, the National Development Plan III and the National Social Protection Policy.
In Uganda, adolescent girls living in urban areas bear the burdens of poverty and exclusion amidst vulnerability to exploitation and abuse. Government records show that these were worsened by Covid-19.
“As stakeholders, we have a duty to ensure that all children enjoy their rights as enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, including the right to protection,” UNICEF Representative in Uganda, Dr Munir Safieldin remarked March 22 in Uganda’s capital, Kampala.
Like many developing countries, Uganda still faces challenges that require efforts to safeguard the well-being of many women and children in the country.
According to World Bank (2020), the Covid-19 pandemic has unequivocally demonstrated the strategic role of social protection. But as of July 2021, effective social protection coverage was estimated at 2.9 per cent, with the government spending only an average of 0.25 per cent of GDP on social protection, on average.
“With the financial contribution from the Belgian Government, we will work with the Government of Uganda, through KCCA to scale up the GEG programme from the current 1,500 to 3,000 in and out-of-school adolescent girls. We are confident this unique intervention will keep growing and help sustain demand for critical services by young people in Kampala,” he added.
The GEG programme will be managed by Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and implemented by two civil society partners.
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