Georgia, Tbilisi, April 18 / Trend N.Kirtzkhalia /
The UN Children's Fund has released recommendations on the reduction of infant mortality and child poverty in Georgia. In this regard, Head of the UNICEF office in Georgia Sasha Grauman and Minister of Labour, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia, David Syarheenka held a briefing on Wednesday.
According to Grauman, such simple measures as the mandatory fortification of flour to reduce anaemia among pregnant women and providing mothers and children aged between six and 24 years old with vitamins and microelement that will allow Georgia to save 300 children each year. Along with this, retraining of neonatologists across the country is also important because 72 per cent of childhood deaths are registered during the first week after birth. These activities are among those recommendations that UNICEF is considering together with the Health Ministry of Georgia in order to increase the number of saved children.
"UNICEF welcomes the efforts of the Ministry of Health aimed at solving the problems of socially unprotected children. We call on the government to invest in younger child development programmes, including those related to healthcare, preschool education, child poverty reduction and improvement of the child care system. This will influence not only the health of younger children and their well-being, but also ensure economic growth in the medium and long term, contributing to the population growth," Grauman said.
UNICEF also offers the government the facility to impose universal benefits to the sum of 30 lari per month for each child under the age of five and a monitoring mechanism to ensure that the universal benefits have improved the situation of children in families. As a result of these activities, extreme poverty among children under five years will decrease by 40 per cent.
According to the UN Children's Fund, 77 000 children in Georgia live in extreme poverty, including 26 000 under the age of six. In terms of mortality among children, Georgia is ranked second in Europe.