The unprecedented and prolonged school closures aimed at keeping students safe from COVID-19 are harming them in other ways, World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF said, urging governments in Africa to promote the safe reopening of schools while taking measures to limit the spread of the virus.
A WHO survey of 39 countries in sub-Saharan Africa found that schools are fully open in only six countries. They are closed in 14 countries and partially open (exam classes) in 19 others. Around a dozen countries are planning to resume classroom learning in September, which is the start of the academic year in some countries.
However, the impact of extended education disruption is significant. It includes among others: poor nutrition, stress, increased exposure to violence and exploitation, childhood pregnancies, and overall challenges in mental development of children due to reduced interaction related to school closures.
In Eastern and Southern Africa, UNICEF finds that violence rates against children are up, while nutrition rates are down with more than 10 million children missing school meals. For girls, especially those who are displaced or living in low-income households, the risks are even higher. For example, following school closures triggered by the 2014 West Africa Ebola outbreak, pregnancy rates among teenagers in Sierra Leone doubled and many girls were unable to continue their education when schools reopened.
The long-term social and economic impact of extended school shutdown is also concerning. According to a World Bank modeling, school closures in sub-Saharan Africa could result in lifetime earning losses of USD 4,500 per child. This may also be worsened by reduced earning of the parents who are forced to stay at home to take care of the children especially in households that cannot afford child care services.
“Schools have paved the way to success for many Africans. They also provide a safe haven for many children in challenging circumstances to develop and thrive,” said Dr Matshidiso Moeti, WHO Regional Director for Africa. “We must not be blind-sided by our efforts to contain COVID-19 and end up with a lost generation. Just as countries are opening businesses safely, we can reopen schools. This decision must be guided by a thorough risk analysis to ensure the safety of children, teachers and parents and with key measures like physical distancing put in place.”
WHO, UNICEF and the International Federation of Red Cross have issued guidance on COVID-19 prevention and control in schools. The guidance includes recommendations for physical distancing measures such as staggering the beginning and end of the school day, cancelling school events that create crowding, spacing desks when possible, providing handwashing facilities, wearing masks, discouraging unnecessary touching and ensuring that sick students and teachers stay at home.
“The long-term impact of extending the school shutdown risks ever greater harm to children, their future and their communities,” said UNICEF Regional Director for Eastern & Southern Africa, Mohamed M. Malick Fall. “When we balance the harm being done to children locked out of schools, and if we follow the evidence, it leads children back into the classroom.”
WHO and UNICEF also recommend a range of hygiene and disinfection measures for schools to reopen and operate safely, including regular handwashing, daily disinfection and cleaning of surfaces, basic water, sanitation and waste management facilities, and environmental cleaning and decontamination.
However, millions of children attend schools that lack water, sanitation and hygiene services. In sub-Saharan Africa, only a quarter of schools have basic hygiene services, 44% of them have basic drinking water and 47% cent have basic sanitation services, according to a WHO and UNICEF report assessing progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in schools between 2000 and 2019.
WHO, UNICEF urge safe school reopening in Africa
Football predictions for upcoming events
The events in the Champions League didn’t go as expected. For example, the French Lyon overcame Juventus, and mistakes of the Meringues allowed the Citizens to proceed to the quarterfinals of the main European tournament. Bookmakers did not expect such results, as all football predictions on the popular sports statistics site said otherwise.
A particularly shocking game was held between Juventus and Lyon, as the Turinese managed to earn a penalty kick in their net and missed a goal in their field. Sarri’s players were obliged to take a ticket to the quarterfinals, but Cristiano Ronaldo’s two goals for the team were not enough, and therefore they lost all chances. Most likely, the following factors contributed to this:
Decisions of the coach. Juve’s head coach Sarri decided to experiment with technique and made some changes. If earlier the Turinese found balance with the ball, now the attack was more prominent.
Confusion. It cannot be ignored that the players relaxed pretty much after the Serie A finished. At the same time, they underestimated their opponent, because Lyon, in addition to the penalty kick, managed to create several dangerous moments at the hosts’ goal.
Lack of key players. In addition to the above factors, missing Khedira and Costa could have influenced the outcome of the match. And, as fans know, they are always able to help their team win.
Be that as it may, Sarri’s charges can now go on a well-deserved rest and then start preparing for the next season. Well, as for other football events of the Champions League, fans can already make their high-quality predictions today. To study the list of the upcoming competitions, it’s recommended to visit the Livescore statistical resource.
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PDC launches performance based accountability
Executives of Federal offices will be accountable during their tenure at public offices after evaluation. Planning and Development Commission (PDC) launches Monitoring and Evaluation (M and E) System to centralize the evaluation and performance of federal offices.
Currently, officials and their staff or offices are responsible and accountable for malfunction occurred at public offices.
According to the new scheme the responsibility will also include poor performance.
At the launching ceremony followed by discussion, participants from different offices and professions raised the issue that the accountability should consider weak performances.
Meseret Damte, Deputy Auditor General of Office of Federal Auditor General, said that her office conducted performance audit for the readiness of PDC to attain the Sustainable 
Development Goal (SDG) from 2015/16 to 2018/19 budget year. “We have seen some areas during the audits,” she said. “The gap of road map for SDG, the role of executors was not purely stated, and there is lack of information, administration and database, and we have also commented that public offices to participate the private sector and civic society in the preparation of programs, and to achieve the SDG’s we recommend PDC to conduct its strategy,” she explained.
Relevant and strong monitoring mechanism and coordination are also recommended for the achievement of the UN SDG goals that is expected to end by 2030, according to the Deputy Auditor General.
“We considered that PDC is using our recommendation to develop this software,” Meseret said.
She added that after developing this software and conduct M and E properly, “based on our experience and evaluation poor performance and lack of delivery was not considered as accountable due to that public property is wasted improperly,” she said.
Meseret strongly recommended that tough discipline should be considered and performance accountability will be applied.
Experts at the meeting said that performance responsibility has to be applied to qualify civil service operation.
Tsigereda Bekele, President of Ethiopian Evaluation Association (EEvA), and Getnet Alemu, Associate Professor at Addis Ababa University, have also recommended a performance audit as a crucial area to attain required performance and correct unnecessary losses.
Adanech Abebe, Attorney General, indicated that the political reform has considered the performance evaluation besides the usual controlling mechanisms.
“There is no culture in the country to become accountable for failure or under performance and that should be corrected,” she said.
“We are saying now that strong institutions should put to place performance evaluation and accountability that is considered under the reform,” the Attorney General added.
The trend of financing from foreign sources whether grant or loan has changed and focused on result oriented financing. Yasmin Wohabrebbi, State Minister for Economic Cooperation at Ministry of Finance said “due to that quality information produced under the new scheme will help us to go with the new nature of access to foreign financing.”
The scheme will contribute to accomplish projects as per the schedule besides running the debt settlement properly, according to Yasmin.
She underlined that discipline is a priority for the implementation of the system.
Fitsum Assefa, Commissioner of PDC said that the system will help conduct prudent study and draft policy development.
“In the past disintegrated reporting was conducted by government offices and up to six reports were developed,” she says adding “the new system will harmonize the reporting scheme.”
“M and E is equally relevant besides planning to apply strong controlling mechanism, which needs strong enforcement method by the government,” she added.
“Political commitment is crucial to make the system operational and achieve the development plan,” she said.
Success and result would be priority than focus on process, according to the Commissioner; the system would also contribute for data standardization besides strengthening controlling capacity.
Experts like Tsigereda and Getnet said that impact based evaluation should be implemented on the performance of project.
Getnet said that there were no consistent M and E in the past. He reminded that Ethiopia was a pioneer in introducing monitoring when the first five year development plan was applied in 1956, while evaluation was not considered a part. “Meanwhile we were pioneers even from Asian countries but the performance was poor,” he added.
The monitoring system during the Derg regime was relatively strong but that was eroded in the past three decades.
He criticized the politically motivated decisions that affect poor performance of M and E in the past decades. “It is difficult to give a decision on officials who are accused of ill operation because leaders will get political clearance,” he explained how the ruling party was involved. The Associate Professor recommended that the role of party and government should be disconnected to attain the targeted M and E.
“Lack of coordination, lack of understanding for evaluation and others are reasons for poor performance of monitoring and evaluation operation,” Getnet explained.
He said that public offices like the Prime Minister Office or PDC has a system but they are not integrated.
Tsigereda of EEvA said that M and E system is vital for better decision making since it indicates evidences and information about operations.
She recommended that besides political commitment taken recently national M and E plan is required for the ten year development plan.
“Since M and E by nature is resource intensive to do professional evaluation, we have to go on planned and selective manner for M and E implementation,” EEvA’s President said.
Tsigereda recommended the formation of strong and independent organs in public offices to conduct quality M and E.
The first comprehensive monitoring and evaluation directive was issued two years ago by the Council of Ministers.
“I frequently stated political commitment because it is crucial to attain the expected performance,” Fitsum said.
“We will apply the performance based accountability to measure the operation of leaders besides the usual legal accountability procedure,” she said.
“At the initial stage we give priority to support public offices to achieve their goals and narrow the weakest part,” she told Capital, adding “offices may get three half years based on the evaluation to correct the weak performance but after that based on the direction stated on the directive measures will be taken if the failure is not corrected.”
Zerihun Kebede, a software developer at a Technology Institute, said that that the new scheme will help international organizations to get proper information.
The system has interface with the Office of the Prime Minister to look the performance of public offices.
The M and E System will be implemented as soon as possible during the ten year development plan, the Commissioner told Capital.
The system has interface that is accessed by ministers and they are responsible to report their performance via the platform.
The software is developed locally as per the deal with Ministry of Technology and Innovation.
Abraham Belay, Minister of Technology and Innovation, said that the ministry will continue to provide similar support without charge for public offices and will continue to work to improve the master reporting system.
Fitsum said that the next step will be developing the capacity of public office to be familiar with the M and E System.
Inspection works and evaluative research would be conducted based on the platform.
Addis gets new Drainage Master Plan
The first Drainage Master Plan for the capital city is being conducting by the Addis Ababa City Roads Authority (AACRA) for controlling flood in a coordinated manner.
Moges Tibebe, Director General of AACRA, said that the master plan project is awarded for Sering Ingegneria, an Italian company based in Palermo with its local partner Metaferia Consulting Engineers as a sub consultant.
“The main objective of the service is to prepare Storm Drainage Master Plan for the city of Addis Ababa to better manage drainage with the aim of protecting infrastructure, preventing economic losses and improving public health and the local environment,” the Director General told Capital.
“The service will include a complete master plan drainage study and preliminary design with the related cost estimates and drawings,” Moges said.
The Drainage Master Plan will serve to obtain design criteria for storm drainage design, to evaluate the existing storm drainage system for adequacy, as a basis for design of proposed structures to improve the storm drainage system of the city, and as a guide/reference to evaluate proposed drainage systems for new developments.
The city has significant elevation difference from Entoto to Akaki that makes massive areas in the city vulnerable to flood, according to Moges.
“Besides that there are other reasons like poor solid waste management of dwellers and destruction occurred when other infrastructures are being developed,” he added.
“Previously we have designed every drainages at the road networks separately that would be consolidated together for sustainable and proper treatment,” he explained the benefit of the master plan, which is the first by its nature.
The master plan design undertaken with the cost of 36 million birr, is supported by the World Bank and is expected to be concluded in the budget year.
“The design will critically show the way forward and indicate what and when how to do in the sector,” Moges says adding “we believe that the master plan will contribute for radical shift on the city’s drainage development.”
The Drainage Master Plan would also consider the City Master Plan.
From time to time flood has become a challenge for some part of the city like Akaki and Nifas Silk Lafto.
“Meanwhile the master plan is done; in parallel we are improving and cleaning the existing drainage systems at the road network on preventive maintenance scheme,” he says. “Under the operation 130 locations are identified and over 80 have already prevented,” he added.
Soil management and stone walled terraces development at the outskirt of the city will be done to reduce siltation and flooding. The deforestation at the hills in the northern part of the city is stated as the reason for the growing of flood disaster in the city. AACRA highly encouraged the green legacy and reforestation at the outskirt of the city to cut challenges.
Meanwhile Sering Ingegneria, established in 1981 is new for Ethiopia, it achieved several projects in different countries including in several countries across Africa.
Metaferia Consulting Engineers established in 1990 is one of the leading consulting firms in Ethiopia and is involved in the fields of water supply and sanitation, water resources management and irrigation, environmental management, agriculture and rural development, roads, railways and bridges, buildings; study design and construction supervision and capacity building.
