Mozambique: Playing, in a Chiúre school yard, helps erase memories of escaping on foot - photos
The United Kingdom’s High Commissioner to Mozambique Joanna Kuenssberg has announced an additional support amounting to £34 million between 2017 and 2020 for the country’s health sector.Speaking during a media briefing in Maputo on Wednesday on the occasion of Queen Elizabeth II’s birthday, the British diplomat said that from 2012 to 2016 UK support for the health sector reached £25 million.
According to Kuenssberg, the UK and the Mozambican government are implementing programs to empower women and girls to make them active in development.
“In Mozambique, only 12 percent of formal sector employees are women and that is why the British government supports its economic inclusion” said Kuenssberg in an apparent reference to the MUVA program.
The program helps young women in urban areas to achieve decent employment through innovative training and education.
Citing recent statistics, the British diplomat said that Mozambique occupies tenth position worldwide and second in the southern African region with regard to premature marriages when nearly half of the girls get married before the age of 18, providing early motherhood.
“We know that education is the basis for a country’s development, and poor access to it is a barrier for girls. Without empowered women and girls we are left without the tools to build a firm society,” she said.
The diplomat stressed that in the partnership with Mozambique, the United Kingdom is committed to the provision of basic services, resilience and response to extreme weather events.
The Minister of Gender, Children and Social Action, Cidália Chaúque, said that the government has redoubled its efforts to combat premature marriages mainly in the central and northern regions, where the prevalence of maternal mortality is higher.
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