COTABATO CITY — The European Union and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef) had joined hands to address kinks in the delivery of social services for children in Lanao del Sur province and help, among others, reduce the risk of some of them being recruited into lawless pursuits.
Through the project Building Community Resilience and Delivery of Essential Services for Post Conflict Recovery in Lanao del Sur/Marawi (City), some 680,000 children, 200,000 parents and 120,000 Marawi residents displaced by the war in 2017 will benefit from initiatives in health, education, child protection, child-friendly provincial and municipal planning and investment for children’s rights, and reducing disaster risks.
Costing some P245 million, the project will run for three years and aims to strengthen community resilience, increase coverage of essential services, and promote child-friendly family and community behaviors in the conflict-affected towns of Lanao del Sur, and in some parts of Lanao del Norte and Bukidnon provinces.
In a joint statement, the EU and Unicef said special focus will be given to vulnerable populations including pregnant and lactating women, children with disabilities, indigenous children, out-of-school youth, adolescents at risk of being recruited into armed groups, internally displaced persons and girls.
Precarious condition
“Our journey to development and peace lives on in every Bangsamoro youth who carries our dreams into the future. The unrelenting support of our partners enables us to shape a Bangsamoro that nurtures the health and well-being of each and every child,” said Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (BARMM) Chief Minister Ahod “Al Haj Murad” Ebrahim.
Unicef Philippines representative Oyunsaikhan Dendevnorov stressed that the foundation for achieving sustainable development, peace and security is having every child’s rights fulfilled, respected and protected.
“Children have a right to just be children and play, learn and spend time with family and friends,” Dendevnorov said.
A Unicef briefer noted that children and youth in Lanao del Sur are in a precarious condition with “over 80 percent of children living in poverty and their rights to health, education and protection are not cared for.”
“Conflict, internal displacement, limited development opportunities and the COVID-19 pandemic all have contributed to this situation,” said the Unicef.
Today, some 120,000 individuals are still displaced, almost six years after the siege of Marawi City in 2017, with many families living in temporary shelters or hosted by relatives. “Many families have depleted assets and exhausted coping mechanisms,” Unicef noted.
A Unicef “Situation Analysis of Children” in the region in 2017 showed that difficulties in access to schools have left many children and youth to drop out. With weak child protection systems, more than 100,000 out-of-school adolescents in the province are “at-risk of associating with armed groups,” said the Unicef.
Collaboration
“A whole generation of children in the BARMM may see their capacity to thrive as adults hampered, impacting the region’s sustainable development and long-lasting peace,” the agency added.
In the process of achieving the project’s outcomes, EU Ambassador to the Philippines Luc Veron said the BARMM’s capacity to plan and deliver services will be strengthened, noting that implementation will involve collaboration among the regional government’s agencies for health, social services, education, interior and local governments, as well as with local governments, and development and humanitarian organizations.