The United Nations resident coordinator in Angola, Paolo Balladelli, who was speaking at the end of a hearing with the President, Joao Lourenço, in Luanda, said he had told the head of state that the United Nations had reprogrammed part of the resources that are in the cooperation plan with Angola, including another 3.5 million dollars approved to support southern provinces of the country.
"We have 12.5 million dollars reprogrammed to support the national response against Covid-19 and also now we have approved 3.5 million dollars for the south of the country to support the food security of the populations," he said.
According to Paolo Balladelli, these are resources that complement the efforts of the state and the various governors of the provinces concerned, namely Cunene, Huila, Namibe and Cuando Cubango.
"We are going to pool these resources in order to initially [have] an effective response to protect the population," he said.
The UN official said that on that occasion he also thanked the Angolan president and executive for the good cooperation and collaboration that existed, "which is fundamental to be able to bring all the resources, all the partners and all the funding that may be needed in this serious phase that the world is going through, and not only Angola".
"We consider, with the President of the Republic, that the state of emergency was a well thought out measure, well implemented, fundamentally, because the physical distance between people at this moment is the most important weapon that we have in our hands to prevent the spread of the virus", he stressed.
The coordinator in Angola of all the organizations of the United Nations system that deal with operational activities for development recalled that, "at the same time, social isolation can create problems of social and economic type," so it must be accompanied by "social and economic measures to protect the population.
"For example, money transfers in the social field, creating opportunities for accelerated production," he said, adding that the United Nations Food Fund (FAO) is currently working on value chains with the Angolan Ministry of Economy and Planning, especially wheat, cassava, maize, eggs, chickens, to increase production in the coming months and thus ensure food for the population.
"We know that in these crises - and we have spoken with the President - the fundamental point is to maintain food security and access to water," he stressed.
Angola has so far had 19 positive cases of covid-19, two of which have resulted in deaths and four patients have already recovered.
