With the endorsement of the Office of the Mayor, a new public-private sector coalition is preparing to support 1.2 million people affected by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the capital. The effort, worth USD 6 million, is to be providing scarce resources such as water, soap, water tankers, as well as development of behavioural change education within the densest areas of Addis Ababa.
Mary Joy, one of Ethiopia’s noted charity organisations is to help facilitate the impact assessment and will monitor the project, while Save the Children is to provide technical guidance and support.
“The Block-Based Community Engagement Agency within the Addis Ababa City Administration Mayor’s Office has identified 24,934 blocks within the city to collect vital statistics and data including the vulnerability status. It has also built 1357 resoruce bands within the 121 woredas of the 10 sub cities were donated materials are collected and distributed” the coalition said at a press conference held inside Addis Ababa City Hall on Thursday.
The effort named, ‘Tenachin Bejachin!’ is an initiative of Dalberg Group and Roha Group, which is noted for advising such government institutions such as Ethiopia’s Job Creation Commission, a number of government ministries, including the Ministry of Industry, as well as Roha Group, an organisation that builds companies in Africa.
To help execute the mission, more than 260 people were trained on standard procedure on safety and health issues and have them educate the population.
Roha donated the initial funding of 1 million USD while the balance is expected to come from other sources, including from donors. So far, 15 manufacturers are in discussion to support the initiatives which is expected to last 6 month and may become permanent based on the result and impact achieved.
This comes as a growing list of businesses are becoming engaged in helping public institutions meet their objectives as the death and those impacted by the new pandemic hits a record high number of victims, where so far, more than 10,000 people have tasted positive to the deadly virus.
