AP, UNICEF to implement action plan to achieve MDG

Hyderabad, Jun 19 (UNI) The Andhra Pradesh Government, in collaboration with the UNICEF, will implement an action plan for children during the 11th Plan period in keeping with the commitment to the Millennium Development Goal (MDG), Women Development and Child Welfare Minister N Rajyalakshmi said today.

The comprehensive action plan (2007-2010), cutting across different sectors, would focus on, among other issues, early childhood care and development, their education, children trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation, children with HIV/AIDS, she said while inaugurating a workshop on finetuning the strategy to achieve the MDG.

The plan, aimed at achieving universal primary education, promoting gender equity and empowerment of women, would reduce by two-thirds, the mortality rate among children under five and by three-quarters maternal mortality, she said adding that the government aimed to provide safe drinking water by 2009 in all rural habitations as per the plan.

The State needed to look at child protection in a comprehensive manner, cutting across different sectors and ensure coherence of financial and programmatic components as well as to avoid duplication of efforts, UNICEF Representative to Andhra Pradesh Michel Saint Lot said.

Rural Andhra Pradesh had the highest infant mortality rate among the southern states at 64 per 1000 live births as only 46 per cent of children below age of two years recieved all immunizations, the draft action noted.

The State ranked ninth in the country in terms of children's attendance with only 66 per cent girls and 71 per cent boys from total children population in the age group attending schools.

It targetted to reduce, among other things, incidence of diarrhoeal deaths by 75 per cent, reduce acute respiratory infection deaths by 75 per cent and bring down prenatal and neonatal mortality rate by 50 per cent.

UNI