UNICEF - Support to Unicef country program in DRC 2018-2021

Swedens contribution to the Unicef Country Programme in the DRC focused on the sectors of health, child protection, and social inclusion and resilience. Goal area 1 Every child survives and thrives (Health) The results achieved in 2021 built on previous years and were achieved through comprehensive efforts in collaboration with several partners to support maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health interventions. The strategic partnerships were critical to achieving results in 2021, despite a very complex context, including the COVID 19 pandemic. The government initiative for a national health development plan towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC), was supported by Unicef through strengthened partnership with the InterDonor Health Group (GIBS), including support for the development of a national roadmap for UHC. In 2021, DRC counted seven different types of concurrent epidemic outbreaks: Ebola, Polio, Measles, Plague, Cholera, Malaria, Meningitis. Unicef contributed to the public health emergency response and supported the development of 55 preparedness and response plans in the provinces with epidemics. North Kivu South Kivu Tanganyika Haut Lomami Haut Katanga for cholera, and in Beni for Ebola. Two resurgences of Ebola Virus Disease outbreaks (12th and 13th) were promptly suppressed and lasted barely three months, this largely thanks to mechanism that have been built in previous responses. Unicef furthermore supported the response to cholera through the supply of drugs, kits and capacity building, which has improved the quality of the response, with a considerable reduction in the number of cases from 351 to 201 in 2021. Unicef was also able to vaccinate 864,845 children, (i.e. 83% of a target of 1,043,683), the majority aged 0 to 59 months. However, some health zones were not able to organize a response to cases due to lack of funds to cover operational costs. In 2021, 354,772 IMCI kits for diarrhoea and fever treatment were distributed to U5 children while 36,221 pregnant women received safe delivery kits in 29 Health Zones. In total, 405,720 diarrhoea cases (83,6%) and 556,122 pneumonia cases (90,4%) were treated among children under 5 both at health facilities and community care sites in 128 Health Zones. Goal area 3 Every child is protected from violence and exploitation (Child Protection) In 2021, thanks to Unicef's support, 2,196 healthcare facilities (out of an estimated of 8576 health facilities countrywide) contributed to birth registration through a proxy system or the presence of civil registration services inside health centres. This represents a 50% increase compared to 2020. In addition to supporting birth registration within the legal timeframe of 90 days after birth, Unicef also supported the registration of more than 300,000 children after the legal timeframe. Thanks to these efforts a total of 1,518,715 births were registered through the civil registration system in 2021, representing an 18 percent increase from 2020 which exceeded the target of 1,124,580 births set for 2021. In 2021, Unicef remained the largest stakeholder in DRC for assistance and support to children released from armed groups (CAFAAG) and unaccompanied minors (UASC) and catered for approximately 7580% of the target set by the child protection area of responsibility (CP AoR). 127,718 vulnerable children affected by conflict benefited from psychosocial assistance and support (MHPSS). Moreover, Unicef scaled up its GBV prevention and response programming, increasing the number of dedicated GBViE partnerships from three in 2020 to eleven in 2021. The programmatic scale up enabled Unicef DRC to reach 152,000 women and children with GBV prevention, response and risk mitigation. A 10 times increase if compared with 2020 results. Goal area 5 Every child has an equitable chance in life (Social Inclusion and Resilience) In 2021 one of Unicef´s DRC priorities for Social Inclusion and Resilience was to support the Ministry of Social Affairs in the design of a child and shock responsive social protection system. Examples of results for social inclusion and resilience: In North Kivu, Unicef supported vocational training for 200 adolescents. Unicef also supported the training of 12 officers of the DIVAS in literacy teaching for outofschool adolescents. The adolescents were then provided both with vocational trainings and literacy skills. 505 adolescents (321 girls and 184 boys), including 305 adolescents in Kaniola and, 200 adolescents in Mwenga were integrated into vocational trainings. A second cohort of 705 young adolescents (439 girls and 266 boys) was also identified in Kaniola, Mwenga and Ruzizi in September 2021 and training started in November 2021 for a period of 3 to 10 months Unicefsupported activities in school focused on the training of 83 inspectors from the Ministry of Primary, Secondary and Technical Education (EPST) and 520 teachers aswell as directors of 42 schools out of the 52 targeted by the project on the "healthy school" module to ensure proper WASH services in the school setting. Unicef and WFP jointly implemented a cash project to mitigate the impact of COVID19 in Nsele (Kinshasa) following a shock responsive approach. The project assisted 21,100 households for 3 months. In 2021, the Unicef, WFP and FAO joint resilience project in the provinces of North Kivu (Walikale) and South Kivu (Mwenga and Kaniola) succeed in improving feeding practices at household level leading to chronic malnutrition prevalence reduction in the two project zones. The project covered 410 villages with 335 established CAC applied a multisectoral approach, across four strategic pillars: (i) Direct nutrition interventions (ii) WASH interventions (iii) Agricultural production and food security (iv) Coordination and development of an environment that is conductive to development. In 2021, in a desired attempt to link humanitarian and development interventions to build community resilience in the Kasai province, UN Agencies, with various funding, piloted nexus projects with respect to their mandates. The Swedish thematic fund allowed Unicef and its partners to implement a package of promotional and preventative aspects of nutrition to reinforce community resilience in 4 territories (Dibaya, Luiza in Kasai Central and Kamonia and Mweka). The nexus implementation approach of the 20202024 Country Programme promotes synergy across programmes and addresses overlapping deprivations faced by children by linking humanitarian, postemergency, and development contexts.

This contribution aimed to support the implementation of UNICEF Country Programme in DRC 2018-2021, namely the achievement of the following goal areas: Every child survives and thrives In health, the objective of the intervention was specifically to increase the coverage of high impact interventions on maternal, adolescent and child health in the health zones and to encourage the adoption of responsible behaviours by adolescents and young people to prevent unwanted pregnancies, HIV/AIDS and human papilloma virus (HPV) as well as to support positive health policy development centrally and at intermediate levels in the country. It was expected that in four years time, three quarters of the 516 Health Zones in DRC would be able to provide the high impact interventions on maternal, adolescent and child health, and at least 80% of targeted villages certified as child-friendly communities. Every child is protected from violence With regard to protection, the objective was to contribute to promote governance for child protection and strengthening protective environment from all forms of violence in the country. In terms of results, the support contributed to identification, interim care and psychosocial support, reunification and reintegration measures and quality services for at least 50% of the affected children; as well as to operationalization of surveillance mechanisms (i.e. the "Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism on Grave Child Violations of children's rights in armed conflicts (MRM) 1612" and the "Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Arrangements on Conflict-Related Sexual Violence (MARA) 1888") in order to improve prevention of and response to grave violations of childrens rights. Every child lives in a safe and clean environment. The interventions in transitional zones was aimed at improving coverage of basic social services and in strengthening communities' capacity to manage key risks and vulnerabilities. Results in terms of increased access to basic social services concern access to primary education, to health services including prevention and treatment of severe malnutrition, to safe water and sanitation. Strengthening community-level social protection neworks, including using cash transfer mechanisms. The contribution was very much in line with the priorities outlined in the Swedish Development Cooperation Strategy with DRC 2015-2019 - specifically with respect to the objectives related to "Improving Basic Health and to "Protected Human Security and Freedom From Violence", including by strengthening the resilience of vulnerable groups and societies.