Today's guest is Dr. Naveed Sadozai from the World Health Organization (WHO). He will be talking about today's polio immunization launch and the prospect for the full eradication of the disease in Afghanistan .

•  Awareness posters to warn population of flood risks

The posters displayed on the wall behind me were produced in Dari and Pashto by UN-HABITAT as part of an information campaign on flood awareness. The message is to make people aware of the risks of floods. They have been distributed throughout flood risk areas where everyone can easily see them.

The basic message, displayed using four pictures, says: “If you pay attention to the following instructions you will reduce the risk of getting affected by floods.” The first picture cautions to avoid living in high-risk areas prone to floods. The second picture is to make people aware and ready should a flood happen. The third picture warns that in the event of a flood the population should make its way to higher ground and have enough food and water to survive. The final diagram warns farmers to also take their animals to higher ground with adequate amounts of food and water for their animals.

•  Flood preparations ongoing

You might remember the Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment (RDNA) training that took place in Kabul on 30 March. As scheduled, this important training is now moving to the provinces with a session to be held tomorrow in Ghazni, and more sessions expected to take place in other provinces over the next two weeks. This training is meant to streamline the procedures on how to assess flood damage and the need for assistance in order to optimize the coordinated response to flooding by the Afghan authorities as well as the international community.

In terms of preparations for floods, planning actively continues and extreme vigilance remains the key word. According to the United States government National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Famine Early Warning System (FEWS), the forecast for the next few days calls for a shift to above freezing daytime temperatures for the central mountains, which could mark the beginning of a period of rapid melt and large flows. The rate of warming will of course control the rate of melt, and the duration of the melt period. Gradual warming will mean less flooding.

Not withstanding this weather forecast, the Afghan Department of Disaster Preparedness - in conjunction with the Joint Operations Centre, the body responsible for the management of the flood response operations – is currently putting together a concrete plan to finalize the response to floods. On the basis of the maps developed by the Forecasting Analysis Group - made up of the Afghan Government, UN agencies and Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) – the exact quantity of assistance needed in high-risk locations is currently being assessed, while stocks already in the country are reviewed. The underlying idea is to determine whether there is a gap between what might be needed, in case of floods, and what is already available in the country. This plan will be used to possibly distribute or re-direct assistance to logistical hubs for pre-positioning. The World Food Programme (WFP) will contribute most food assistance. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS) will provide non-food items. Medical supplies will come from the Ministry of Public Health with the support of the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.

The flood risk maps can be viewed on Afghanistan 's Information Management Systems (AIMS) website: www.aims.org/af .

•  DDR: number of disarmed surpasses 47,000 mark

At last count 47,612 former Afghan Military Forces (AMF) officers and soldiers had joined the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) programme.

In terms of heavy weapons, there has been no change since our last briefing to the number collected. So far 8,926 heavy weapons have been collected.

Several weeks ago we also promised you some data collected by the ammunition survey teams from the Afghanistan New Beginnings Programme (ANBP) traveling throughout the country. The data is still incomplete and in fragments, however ANBP says its five survey teams, and soon to be six as of this week, h ave visited and surveyed a total of 228 caches, depots, storage compounds, and ammunition dumps since starting work at the end of last year.

Those 228 locations contain a total of 1,145,573 pieces of ammunition ranging from heavy caliber anti- aircraft to field artillery and tank shells. Almost none of the ammunition found so far is for the popular AK-47, also known as the Kalishnikov.

ANBP does not yet have a complete breakdown of the calibers found but will provide it when available. In terms of weight, one estimate is that some 3,000 tons of ammunition have been surveyed. A more precise figure is also to come.

The results of the survey, expected in a few months, will be given to the government, which will decide what to do with the ammunition. Some can go to the Afghan National Army (ANA) but any that is loose, unstable, or otherwise dangerous will have to be destroyed.

•  DDR Press conference rescheduled

During our last briefing we had indicated a DDR press conference that was to be held today at 4 o'clock in Kandahar by the Japanese Embassy Counselor Yuichi Inouye. Due to complications in trying to get to Kandahar , the press conference was cancelled and has been rescheduled for tomorrow afternoon at 4 o'clock at the ANBP regional office in Kandahar .

Counselor Inouye is the senior Japanese diplomat responsible for the DDR programme and for the past several weeks he has been visiting ANBP operations in all regions to ensure that Afghanistan New Beginnings Programme is spending his government's money properly.

To date, the Government of Japan has provided more than US $90 million dollars to support ANBP's activities.

•  Fifth Working Group meets on development and alternative livelihoods in Badakhshan

A one-day working group took place yesterday in Faizabad, Badakhshan, to discuss development and planning regarding alternative livelihoods. The meeting, which was a follow-up to the last working group on February 10 th , was attended by the Governor and provincial authorities, key donors, development agencies operating in the province and UNAMA. Participants have continued planning coordinated mechanisms to develop alternative livelihood programs in key poppy producing districts in the northeast region.

UNAMA has been working closely with the Governor of Badakhshan who is taking a leading role in supporting the working group. While this meeting takes place a few days after the Afghanistan Development Forum, the close collaboration between UNAMA and the provincial authorities illustrates the comment made by Jean Arnault, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, in his introductory speech during the Forum, where he stressed that the time had come to “engage in serious policy dialogue around future strategic priorities” - alternative livelihoods being clearly one of these priorities.

This meeting in Faizabad will also be in support of the government strategy to establish coordination mechanisms at the provincial level in order to plan development activities. Badakhshan has been selected by the central government to undergo a pilot project on provincial development, which will eventually lead to the production of a provincial development plan, at the local level and under the leadership of the provincial authorities. To increase the capacity of local authorities, UNAMA is planning to launch a series of workshops aimed at training local authorities on development and governance.

The meeting was organized by UNAMA, the British government and the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ). This was the fifth meeting of the Badakhshan Development Working Group and the first time it was attended by authorities from Kabul .

•  MoWA, Ministry of Transportation and UNIFEM hold first workshop on National Action Plan for Women of Afghanistan

The Ministry of Women's Affairs (MoWA) is conducting a workshop with the Ministry of Transportation today. The workshop is held thanks to the technical support of the United Nations Women's Fund (UNIFEM).

This is the first of a series of ministry-level workshops that will support the development of the National Action Plan for the Women of Afghanistan, as launched last March. Sensitive issues affecting women in the transportation sector, such as limited seats allocated for women in public buses, will be discussed, resulting in recommendations on policy and programme measures to address these issues.

More ministry-based planning workshops will be conducted in the next three weeks in order to develop the first draft of the Action Plan.

For more information please contact Monema Mansour at the Ministry of Women's Affairs at:

070 298 985.

•  MoWA holds staff seminar on Millennium Development Goals

Last Thursday (April 7) the Ministry of Women's Affairs held a half-day training workshop for its staff on the ministry's role to develop the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Millennium Development Goals express the goals for sustainable development as synthesized into a global agenda for development.

There are eight Millennium Development Goals. The third goal focuses on the empowerment of women and the promotion of equality between women and men, which are critical to achieving all eight goals.

The Ministry of Women's Affairs plans to work towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals through establishing and chairing a national technical working group on gender issues which will monitor and track the progress made, coordinate an information and advocacy campaign, and establish a mechanism to develop an annual progress report on gender issues at the national and regional level.

•  UNAMA Gender Unit releases first monthly bulletin

UNAMA's Gender Unit launched its first "Gender Issues" bulletin yesterday. The monthly bulletin will cover the latest on the gender front in Afghanistan , particularly with news from the regional offices, as well as gender topics from around the world with relevance to Afghanistan .

•  Needs Assessment Training to focus on civil servants

A three-day Training Needs Assessment (TNA), which begins on Tuesday (April 12) at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul , will focus on Afghan civil servants and their job training needs. It is the first in a series of similar trainings that will also take place throughout Afghanistan over the course of April and May and support capacity building, in order to improve the competencies of civil servants in the provinces, districts and municipalities.

The Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission (IARCSC) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) are collaborating to focus on the immediate needs for sub-national training and capacity building for Afghan civil servants.

A total of 29 provinces, 87 districts, and 600 civil servants will be involved and will include senior and mid-level management as well as “rank and file” employees. Political appointees will not take part in the activity because they are not considered civil servants.

•  Seminar and press briefing on “Challenges and Solutions” of Afghan legal system

Beginning today until Tuesday (April 12), the Ministry of Justice is holding a seminar to discuss and exchange views on the current justice system. Entitled “ Afghanistan 's Legal System: Challenges and Solutions”, the conference will involve 150 justice sector staff from around Afghanistan . Among the topics discussed will be the Priority Reform and Restructuring Programme, provincialization, and law reform.

At the end of this first day, the media will be invited to a press briefing, which will take place this afternoon at 4 o'clock at the Ballroom of the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul . Sarwar Danish, the Minister of Justice, along with some of the other seminar participants, will be speaking about the event's objectives and progress, and will be able to answer your questions.

This seminar, which falls under the project “Rebuilding the Justice Sector in Afghanistan”, is part of the role UNDP is playing in rebuilding and strengthening Afghanistan's justice institutions, developing Afghan law faculties and improving the overall access to justice in the country. The seminar is being sponsored by UNDP. The project's major donors are Italy , Canada , and the United Kingdom .

Questions & Answers

No questions were asked.

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Dr. Naveed Sadozai from the World Health Organization (WHO) speaks on the Polio Eradication Initiative in Afghanistan

I am here today to tell you where we stand in terms of polio cases. In 2004 only four cases of polio were reported in the country. So far this year we have had no reported cases of polio. This is a big achievement for the government and people of Afghanistan .

A lot of this has been made possible because we have had concerted campaigns in the last eight years thanks to the Ministry of Public Health, the people of Afghanistan and the 40,000 volunteer vaccinators and supervisors who have gone door to door, sometimes under difficult circumstances and to remote geographic areas, not once but many times, every year, in order to immunize children.

That being said, this is far from being over. This is where your role, as journalists, becomes critically important because you have the ability to make things happen.

Parents also play an important role because they have to make sure that every child under the age of five is immunized.

The polio eradication campaign has started today. We have been lucky to have a government that has been extremely supportive. They have been issuing messages and we expect President Karzai to be issuing more messages concerning this very important global initiative.

Another aspect I would like to share is the global polio situation. At the moment there are six countries in the world considered as endemic. Afghanistan is one of them. The highest priority areas are the south provinces of Kandahar , Helmand , Uruzgan and Zabul. There are some minor areas in Nangarhar in the east. We really need to make sure with all the upcoming campaigns to try to reach every child to rid the country of polio within this year.

You might be aware that the Minister of Public Health went to Geneva last year to attend a global forum and pledged that Afghanistan would be free of polio by the end of 2005. A similar pledge and commitment was done again in February 2005.

The stakes could not be higher, or more urgent, for the entire country, most especially its children. The next six months of vaccination activities will be crucial for stopping transmission in Afghanistan and in the world. These activities could seal the fate of the international community's efforts to eliminate polio forever.

Question: Does this mean that Afghanistan is free of polio?

Dr. Sadozai: Afghanistan is not free of polio yet, although so far there have been no cases of polio this year. However, to receive certification, a country needs to remain free of polio for at least three years. There are three countries in the eastern Mediterranean region [ Afghanistan belongs to this WHO geographical classification] which are still endemic: Egypt , Pakistan and Afghanistan . It is critically important that these countries do not have cases this year; otherwise the donors will be losing patience. We cannot continue to go on with this. The rest of the world has done its job. We do not want six polio-endemic countries in the world ( Nigeria , India , Pakistan , Niger , Egypt and Afghanistan ) to spoil the work achieved by the rest of the world. There is a very good chance this can be achieved if Egypt , Pakistan and Afghanistan achieve their goals this year. Should this last for three years, they would then receive their certification. There are only three regions in the world which still have polio: the African region, the eastern Mediterranean region, and the southeast region where India is.

Question: Will you stop the National Immunization Days campaign by the end of 2005?

Dr. Sadozai: The National Immunization Days campaign (NID) may go on for a year or two. The frequency might change depending on how things develop. Not only in Afghanistan but also in Pakistan because there is a lot of back and forth movement between these countries and both have an effect on one another.

Question: How long has Afghanistan been involved in this global campaign?

Dr. Sadozai: For the past eight years, at least, if not longer, there have been concerted efforts to have the National Immunization Days campaign running to eradicate polio. And at the moment, Afghanistan stands a very good chance because there is a low circulation of the virus from outside going around. However, there is evidence of indigenous circulation of the virus. Because we are doing genetic sequencing of the virus we know exactly where the virus comes from. And if it is imported from any other country we will know that this virus was an imported virus, not a local indigenous virus.

Question: How many children are you looking at immunizing during this round?

Dr. Sadozai: We will be looking at covering more than six million children in this round. It is just a rough estimate because we still have about 38 to 40 districts which may not be covered during this round. We will be having a separate round for them at the end of May because they are still not accessible due to heavy snow.

Question: How many volunteers are involved and when does the programme start?

Dr. Sadozai: Starting today until the 12 th of April, about 40,000 volunteers will be going around Afghanistan from door to door trying to reach every child under the age of five.

Question: How much money has been invested?

Dr. Sadozai: About US $30 million a year. It is a lot of investment and the international community has been very generous to provide funds. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them as well, especially the Rotary Club, the CDC (Center for Disease Control) in Atlanta , USAID (US Agency for International Development) and the Japanese Government. There are also a lot of funds which have previously gone into immunization campaigns so it is important that we reach every child to make the best use of these funds and make Afghanistan polio-free.

Question: Who are the volunteers involved?

Dr. Sadozai: One of the main criteria developed by our partners - the most important of them being the Ministry of Public Health - clearly asks for the volunteer to be from the area where he or she is going to do the immunization. One of the reasons why is that in this case the person is well known. Another criteria strongly encourages female participation and I am happy to announce that at the moment 25 percent of all volunteers are females - from the city though. Unfortunately, it is still difficult for them to go out to rural areas because of the tough conditions out there. However there has been a major participation from females during the past three years.

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