UN Radio

UN and Africa
Programme Number: 156
Week of: Sunday, 10th June, 2007
Recording Date: Thursday, 14th June, 2007
Topical Issue(s):
• UN Radio

" The Sudanese Government has announced its acceptances of the proposal for a hybrid UN-African Union peacekeeping operation for Darfur.

" A new meningitis vaccine has proven effective in West African children. An outbreak of meningitis was first recorded in late 2006. Since that time over 27,000 cases have occurred with some 2,000 deaths reported. Dr. Maripol Kieny, Director of the World Health Organization's Vaccine Research Initiative, talks to UNTV's Yvette Morris about the disease and efforts being made to curb it.

" Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action, based in Nigeria, is a human rights advocate concerned with the unhealthy effects of extracting oil from the ground. He spoke to UN Radio's Dianne Penn on the occasion of World Environment Day.

Producer/Presenter: Gerry Adams
Production Assistant: Beng Poblete-Enriquez
Studio Engineer: Steve Williams
Duration: 15'00"

PRESENTER: This is United Nations Radio in New York.

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PRESENTER:

Hello and welcome to UN and Africa. I'm Gerry Adams.

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PRESENTER:

The World Health Organization has announced the development of a new and improved vaccine to fight meningitis:

CLIP 1 Kieny:

Meningitis is a devastating disease. It can kill and it can also leave the affected person who recovers permanently and mentally handicapped.

PRESENTER:

Nnimmo Bassey, Executive Director of Environmental Rights Action of Nigeria is concerned about the environment in general and Nigeria's environment in particular:

CLIP 2 Bassey:

Oil extraction is essentially harmful to the environment except where very extreme care is taken. But in Nigeria that has not been the case.

PRESENTER:

But first, the Sudanese Government has announced its acceptance of the proposal for a hybrid United Nations-African Union peacekeeping operation:

CLIP 3 Guehenno

I explained to the Council that this was in our view a significant step forward.

So stay tuned to UN and Africa.

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PRESENTER: The Sudanese Government has announced its acceptance of the proposal for a hybrid UN-African Union peacekeeping operation to the violence-wracked Darfur region. The Spokesperson for the Secretary-General, Michele Montas, made this announcement on Tuesday:

Montas: The Secretary-General welcomes today's positive conclusions of the high-level African Union-United Nations consultations with the Government of Sudan on the hybrid operation, and looks forward to expeditiously implementing the three-phase approach to peacekeeping in Darfur. He also stresses the need for an immediate comprehensive ceasefire, accompanied by an inclusive political process, as essential steps toward a lasting solution to the crisis in Darfur.

PRESENTER: The hybrid force is the third phase of a three-phase process to replace the existing but under-resourced African Union Mission in the Sudan, also known as AMIS which has been unable to end the fighting in Darfur. President of the Security Council for June, Ambassador Johan C. Verbeke of Belgium, spoke to correspondents minutes after the Security Council met on the subject:

Verbeke: The members of the Council call for the timely and full implementation of the agreement. They support the political process and encourage the special envoys Jan Eliasson and Salim Salim to persevere in their efforts and call upon the government of Sudan and the rebels to cooperate with the envoys. The members of the Council call upon all parties for the immediate and unconditional respect of the ceasefire. They also call upon more generally to further engage with the international community and the council conversely looks forward to its upcoming meeting in Khartoum.

PRESENTER: The Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations, Jean-Marie Guehenno, explained that this newly organized hybrid force is not the end of the road, but an important first step:

Guehenno: There is agreement between the UN and the AU on what the mandate of the force should be. We are very happy with the appointment by the AU of a very experienced force commander. There is agreement on the joint appointment of a special representative who is now going to be the head of AMIS, and will then be the head of the hybrid mission. All that is agreed. SEGUE we know from experience that in peacekeeping operation it is essential to have on the ground a solid leadership, solid headquarters. There we have made arrangements with the African Union. We will be providing administration, we will be providing the logistics, we will be applying UN rules and procedures but in the framework of a joint AU/UN effort.

PRESENTER: The agreement was reached during two days of high-level technical consultations between the UN, the Government of Sudan and the African Union in Addis Ababa. The Permanent Representative of China, Ambassador Wang Guangya, explains the makeup of the force:

China: For the first stage, it will be predominantly an African force but also in terms of capacity and other considerations, if they want, DPKO and with the agreement of this Sudanese Government, they want other forces, certainly if they approach China, we will consider that.

PRESENTER: There has been some question concerning the makeup of the force and whether Sudan would be willing to accept troops from outside of Africa. According to the UN Spokesperson, Michele Montas, the UN had always planned to deploy a large number of African troops to the region, depending on availability.

Montas: this has always been the effort that the UN has been trying for, in that hybrid force, to have the maximum of African troops. If we can get enough African troops it will be essentially African troops. It's just a question of availability of troops, which is really the issue.

PRESENTER: South Africa's Ambassador to the UN, Dumisano Kumalo, says since African troops have been part of UN peacekeeping for a long time, there should really be no question about their participation in any force:

Kumalo: This thing about the composition of the African force - Africans have served in peacekeeping in the UN since peacekeeping started. So let's not make it sound like if a force has an African character it is less of a force than something, I hope that's not the language you're getting into. It is an agreement that was made in Abuja that the force would have an African character but if there are not troops in Africa with the required expertise, with the required equipment, DPKO WILL BE FREE TO RAISE TROOPS FROM other parts of the world. In fact, there are countries outside of Africa that have already offered their troops in this whole thing.

PRESENTER: The hybrid force will be among the issues disussed when the Security Council meets with officials in Khartoum in the coming days as part of its weeklong visit to the region.

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PRESENTER: Meningitis outbreaks are so common in sub-Saharan Africa, that the 21 countries stretching from Senegal in the west to Ethiopia in the east are known collectively as the "meningitis belt". Now the World Health Organization has announced the development of a new and improved vaccine that could help fight the disease in sub-Saharan Africa. UNTV's Yvette Morris spoke to Dr. Maripol Kieny KEE-knee) of WHO about the vaccine:

Kieny: Meningitis is a devastating disease. It's a disease that is caused by a bacterium and it exists in all parts of the world. It's causing infection in the meninge, or in the head. It can kill and it can also leave the affected person who recovers permanently and mentally handicapped. So it's really a terrible scourge. the situation in Africa is special because in what is called the African meningitis belt which is a part of Africa which goes from west to east, from Senegal to Sudan, there are yearly epidemics of meningitis. So this is really sudden burst of a disease which occurs always at the same time - at the very beginning of the year - and which can, according to the year, really kill and handicap thousands of young adults and children.

Morris: HOW HAS IT BEEN TREATED UP TO NOW?

Kieney: There are two interventions against meningitis right now. The first one is reactive vaccination. So this is when a district has over-passed what is called an alert threshold. You have teams that come and do mass vaccinations…the other intervention is when the person is already infected when you see the first sign is to treat them with antibiotics…to try to diminish the symptoms and to preserve the life of the infected person.

Morris: WHAT ARE THE LIMITATIONS OF THESE FORMS OF TREATEMENT AND WHAT IS THE SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NEW DEVELOPMENT?

Kieney: The main difference with the vaccine which has been described now and which is going toward licensing for use in Africa is that this is a vaccine which will be used before the epidemic. So the idea is to do mass vaccination campaign in children up to young adults. Then this should allow for a definite control if everything goes well of this disease in Africa.

Morris: I BELIEVE THIS VACCINE WOULD ALSO LAST LONGER?

Kieney: The effect of a vaccine would last longer. It's not only a sugar, as I said for the first vaccine. It's a sugar with a protein and it induces what is called memory. So memory of a vaccine means that the effect will be much longer.

Morris: HOW SOON IS THIS LIKELY TO BE READILY AVAILABLE AND ON WHAT SCALE?

Kieney: The idea is to first have a mass vaccination campaign as is one entire country in West Africa and this could occur as early as next year, next autumn if everything goes well. The vaccine is indeed licensed by the Indian authority because the vaccine is produced in India. And then the following year there will be a roll out in more and more countries across the African belt.

Narrator: Dr. Maripol Kieny is the Director of the World Health Organization's Vaccine Research Initiative.

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PRESENTER: Environmental Rights Action is an environmental and human rights advocacy group from Nigeria. The organization focuses on the negative effects of the oil industry on the environment. Nnimmo Bassey, Environmental Rights Action's Executive Director, was in Norway recently for the observance and celebration of World Environment Day, June 5th:

Bassey 1: The oil has been extracted right from Nigeria from the 1950s when the first oil well was drilled by the Shell Oil Corporation. Oil extraction is essentially harmful to the environment except where very extreme care is taken. But in Nigeria that has not been the case. Oil has been extracted in a very blatant manner and so we have continuously oil spills, which are mainly because of the careless work and due to failure of equipment, due to aged facilities increasingly and occasionally due to vandalism or what you may cause sabotage. But this is rare. Mainly oil spills in the Niger Delta are caused by aged facilities and equipment failure.

PRESENTER: The people of the communities of the Niger Delta, says Mr. Bassey, live very close to the environment and depend on the land for agricultural produce. But the land is severely degraded:

Bassey 2: In fact there is a story by the Minister of the Environment in Nigeria as well as UNEP…and the Worldwide Fund for Nature has shown that the Niger Delta is the fifth most degraded environment due to petroleum activities. Apart from the oil spills on the land we have oil spills on the river. So that in the Niger Delta sometimes when you see a fire, you don't jump into the river for protection because the river itself may be on fire! And this has happened so much to the extent that the fisher folks 2:49 can't live off fishing anymore.

PRESENTER: Mr. Bassey says severe pollution in the oil extractive industry also results in pollution-producing gas flaring:

Bassey 3: Now gas flaring is simply the setting on fire of natural gas that comes up as gas is extracted. This is known as associated gas - gas associated to oil extraction. And this gas is flared continuously, 24 hours a day and some have been going on for decades. And some happen right where people live. And they are releasing a cocktail of dangerous gases into the atmosphere which affect the health of the people, causing causing blood disorders, causing bronchitis, some respiratory diseases. Apart from leading to acid rain which makes it very hard for the people to maintain their homes, their roofs and also for agricultural production.

PRESENTER: Mr. Bassey also took part in World Environment Day, whose theme was climate change, to help raise awareness of the crisis of global warming and the effect it's destined to have on Africa:

Bassey 4: We are particularly concerned in Africa because as climate change deepens, we re very vulnerable to the impact. People don't see what's happening in the villages, but most of our cities, they are coastal cities. And if sea level rises, most of the cities are going to be wiped off. There's going to be in-land migration, environmental refugees deserts are going to expand. We are already experiencing this in Nigeria. Africa is going to be in a squeeze. We don't have the structures for adaptation.

PRESENTER: Mr. Bassey suggests governments stop playing politics with climate change and take real action.

And that's all for this edition of UN and Africa. Our Production Assistant was Beng Poblete-Enriquez and our sound engineer was Steve Williams. I am Gerry Adams saying goodbye for now.

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