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DAR ES SALAAM The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) has received a contribution of 9.5 million from the European Union (EU) in support of a 24.5 million Food Security and Nutrition Project in central Tanzania.

The project is designed to improve food and nutrition security for 40,000 people while contributing to the reduction of malnutrition in the targeted districts of Bahi and Chamwino in Dodoma region and Ikungi and Singida Rural in Singida region.

The EU contribution was announced today during an official signing ceremony at Umoja House in Dar es Salaam with Dr. Mpoki Ulisubisya, the Permant Secretary of the Ministry of Health, Community Development, Gender, Elderly and Children, Michael Dunford, WFP Country Representative for Tanzania, and Roeland Van De Geer, Head of the European Delegation to Tanzania, in attendance.

Despite improvement in many health indicators over the last decade, there has been insufficient progress in improving the nutritional status of children and women in Tanzania, Roeland Van De Geer, Head of the European Delegation to Tanzania, said at the ceremony. The persistent levels of stunting, wasting and micronutrient deficiencies in the country constitute a silent emergency. The new high-level political commitment to fight under-nutrition in Tanzania from a multi-sectoral perspective is a real game-changer. Through this project the EU together with WFP is well positioned to define and support the links between agriculture, health, food security and nutrition, which have not previously been well articulated or pursued.

The project builds on WFPs long-standing presence in central Tanzania and its experience in providing nutritious food and social behaviour change communication through local health facilities. These activities will be complemented by efforts in other sectors to provide a more holistic approach to reduce stunting in the country. The national level of stunting stands near 34 percent, with Dodoma at 36.5 percent and Singida at 29.2 percent.

Thanks to this contribution from the European Union, WFP is embarking on an innovative programme which aims to meet the nutrition needs of the most vulnerable, especially children during their key growth phase of the first 1,000 days from conception to two years, WFP Country Representative Michael Dunford said at the ceremony. This programme will provide evidence that will inform future initiatives, and it therefore carries the potential to bring about lasting positive change in Tanzania.

In Tanzania, the rate of chronic under-nutrition among children is driven by poverty, food insecurity and inadequate infant and young child feeding. The project will work to improve knowledge on nutrition, dietary diversity and practices in water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). The activities will be boosted by promoting the raising of small-scale livestock, planting diverse crops and mobilizing villages to start small savings and loan groups, increasing access to capital.

Save the Children is WFPs partner in strengthening synergies and capacities of community- based organisations and communities to promote gender empowerment and multi-sector approaches to nutrition, as well as coordinating the implementation of the agriculture component of the project.

By coordinating these activities under one umbrella, WFP, the EU and Save the Children will be addressing multiple challenges in improving food security and nutrition in Tanzania.

The project is part of WFPs work toward achieving Sustainable Development Goal 2: Zero Hunger. In order to reach Zero Hunger by 2030, WFP is working with a wide range of partners including governments, the private sector and civil society.

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WFP is the world's largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger worldwide, delivering food assistance in emergencies and working with communities to improve nutrition and build resilience. Each year, WFP assists some 80 million people in around 80 countries.

Follow us on Twitter:

World Food Programme: @WFP_Tanzania and @WFP_Media European Union: @EUinTZ and @EuropeAid

For more information please contact: Fizza Moloo, WFP/Dar es Salaam, Tel. +255 (0) 692 274 729 or +255 (0) 784 720 022, fizza.moloo@wfp.org Susanne Mbise, European Union, Press & Information Officer, +255 (0) 754 323 245, susanne.mbise@eeas.europa.eu

More here:
European Union Supports WFP Nutrition and Food Security Project in Central Tanzania - ReliefWeb

Economic Times

For the first time in a long time, every EU economy is growing at the same time Quartz The European Union is facing its biggest crisis since well, since its last big crisis. The perpetually problematic union is threatening to come undone, with Britain in the process of quitting the bloc and numerous populist movements elsewhere also ... Brexit impact not as bad as feared, European Union saysEconomic Times British EU residents concerned about Brexit's impact: surveyReuters EU Insists Brexit Will Be A Disaster - No, Eventually, Really, You'll SeeForbes The Guardian -Reuters UK -Express.co.uk all 371 news articles »

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For the first time in a long time, every EU economy is growing at the same time - Quartz

European Union nations are plummeting further into debt, amid angry protests and calls for reform, but the Union continues to push for the joint monetary union.

Now, economists have suggested it is already too late to save the failing monetary union which will "almost surely fail".

Tuomas Malinen, CEO of GnS Economics, said: "Living standards in Italy and Greece are below the levels when they joined the euro.

"Finland is the only Nordic country using the euro and it is also the only Nordic country which has not yet recovered from the financial crash of 2008.

"There have been many proposals on how to fix the euro and the EMU, but they are politically unpopular and unrealistic."

Economists Mr Malinen, Dr Heikki Koskenkyl and Dr Peter Nyberg co-wrote the report 'The Euro May Already Be Lost', which has suggested there are solutions, but they are extreme.

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Eighteen years after the introduction of the euro, the economists argue it simply cannot work without major change.

Experts explained one of the main issues as "different growth paths" for member states.

As different countries develop at different speeds, the gap between success and failure widens and chances of financial support lessen.

If this occurs during an economic boom, "strengthening aggregate demand supports ailing fields of production" meaning crashes can be avoided.

But this is not the case in 2017 Europe.

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While the Eurozone faces crises, experts say, the costs of financing less competitive countries jumps.

This is what is known as an asymmetric shock.

It is suggested for survival, the eurozone needs a similar income transfer system to that used in the US during the Great Depression, where rich states made transfers to the poorer.

The economists' report states: "For permanent income transfers, you would need to change the Maastricht Treaty and ratify it in each member country or to negotiate several bilateral agreements.

"There is only a very small likelihood that these would go through, for example, in Finland and in the Netherlands."

Without public support for a federal union, others have come up with ways to save the euro.

The economists cite CEO of the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) Klaus Regling, who believes a "combination of the banking and capital market union and a rainy day fund" could work.

Any financing through the European Central Bank (ECB), would need to be covered by European tax-payers later when it would become evident that weaker countries are unable to pay back their loans

Economists

The report states: "This fund would allegedly be used when asymmetric shocks occur.

"The fund would be financed jointly by all euro countries. However, because of the persistent differences in competitiveness, its transfers would become permanent.

"Only the most competitive members of the Eurozone would have sufficient income to finance the fund.

"Any financing through the European Central Bank (ECB), would need to be covered by European tax-payers later when it would become evident that weaker countries are unable to pay back their loans and when seigniorage revenues would be unable to cover the losses of the ECB."

In the opinion of Mr Maline, there are only two ways to fix the euro- either "a far-reaching political union or returning to the system described in the Maastricht Treaty, where member states would be responsible for their own economies only".

Under a full political union economic policy decision-making would be concentrated and "would require major structural changes in the Eurozone and its member countries".

Mr Malinen writes: "Tax and social policies would be unified, labor unions would be dismantled or unified as a European-wide system, a European debt relief system and banking union would be set up.

"These would ensure the flexibility of wages, prices, and labor agreements and guarantee convergence of competitiveness and living standards."

The other option, returning to the Maastricht Treaty, would see the winding down of the ESM and the European Financial Stability Facility - and likely Greece's exit from the European Union.

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Mr Malinen said: "The Eurozone is in a stalemate. A federal union would be needed to fix its problems, but there is no public support for it.

"Returning to national fiscal responsibility would lead to defaults and exits. Half-way solutions will prove insufficient but expensive and obfuscate the issues.

"Therefore, there may be no way to avert the partial or complete break-up of the Eurozone in the years to come.

"The fate of the euro may already have been sealed."

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'The euro may ALREADY be lost' Economists predict DOOMSDAY for European Union's currency - Express.co.uk

When the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union, I received a text message from a friend and colleague at the University of Oxford: From one proud European to another; I feel sadness in every cell in my whole body on this nightmare day. I am shocked and devastated. But I hope science and friendships will find a way to transcend this awful mess.

The nightmare continues. The UK parliament last week voted to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to begin withdrawal, and the EU faces probably its greatest crisis.

The European Union is a great project. Yet millions of Europeans are questioning what it does for them. They are told it spends its money on fanciful projects that dont benefit its citizens. They have lost faith in its ability to address their most pressing problems.

Has the EU let its citizens down? I can respond by referring to the fight against antibiotic resistance. The answer is an emphatic No. We have made significant progress over the past two decades, and our success shows what is possible. With colleagues, I analysed levels of funding from the EU and individual states devoted to antibiotic resistance between 2007 and 2013. Some 33% of the total investment came from the EU. By contrast, funds from the EU Framework Programme made up only 7.5% of all research expenditure financed by governments of EU members. This suggests significant underfunding of such research by member states. But more crucially, it shows how important cross-national efforts are. A campaign in Belgium over antibiotic misuse began in 2000, with a similar effort starting in France two years later. Ministers in those countries would not have offered essential support without an EU-funded project that collected necessary and highly compelling data on the scale of the problem.

Ongoing, rigorous data collection and analysis have continued to monitor the situation, and have shown that both campaigns led to crucial decreases in antibiotic use and resistance among non-hospitalized patients. Furthermore, EU-funded, independent studies have demonstrated how the campaigns produced positive changes in clinician and patient attitudes and behaviour towards antibiotic use.

Inspired by this success, the European Commission lent its support to the first European Antibiotic Awareness Day in 2008. This became an annual event, and in 2015 was scaled up to become the World Antibiotic Awareness Week, now coordinated by the World Health Organization.

Theres more. It was EU funding that uniquely enabled us to compare antibiotic resistance in many hospitals throughout Europe. This project identified huge differences between countries in the proportion of infections that were resistant to antibiotics. The data provided a call to arms for many policymakers in member states, and national plans were rolled out for the first time to address the crisis. These initiatives have resulted in a step-change reduction in infections caused by the superbug MRSA in hospitals throughout Europe.

Millions of Europeans are questioning what the European Union does for them.

And it was only after we started analysing antibiotic use in food-producing animals in Europe, supported once again by EU grants, that we realized that the Netherlands was one of the highest European users of antibiotics in farming. After a debate in the Dutch parliament, the Dutch minister of agriculture set mandatory targets for reduced antibiotic use in animal husbandry, and, indeed, Dutch farmers rose to his challenge and achieved these ambitious reductions ahead of schedule. We now have clear indications that antibiotic resistance is decreasing in animals in the Netherlands. It is not only Dutch consumers who are benefiting from the resulting increase in meat safety: consumers throughout Europe have also profited, because food and associated resistant bacteria cross national borders.

Given successes such as these, how can we convince European citizens that the EU project brings considerable benefits to its individual citizens?

To prevent further breakdown of the EU, scientists must shout from the rooftops that many of our problems today can be solved only at a European, or even a global, level. We must challenge time and again the current populist view that countries are better off trying to address the most pressing problems on their own.

European institutions and their staff should develop a strategy to communicate the benefits of the EU more effectively. Journalists should use their diverse platforms to bring many more positive stories to peoples attention. Industry, too, receives considerable support from EU taxpayers to develop its businesses, and should acknowledge this far more widely. And academia should articulate better the benefits of EU support and collaborations. The sentiments in my Oxford friends message on the value of cooperation should be proclaimed in banners across universities buildings and on their websites. Rectors and vice-chancellors should be bolder in repeating them to government, students and citizens.

Why dont we create a group of EU-funded scientists who regularly present some of their impactful research to European citizens using more varied and creative media and messages? I realize that this might itself sound rather like a populist manifesto. Perhaps we should indeed counter EU critics by unashamedly using the methods that have served these people so well. But there will be a crucial difference: our populist programme will be supported by hard evidence, rather than by deceitful slogans on the sides of buses and by alternative facts.

Visit link:
Shout about the European Union's success - Nature.com

Italy, one of the EUs founding members, is currently trying to woo France and Germany into backing plans for a two-speed EU in the face of a growing eurosceptic movement.

The post-Brexit plans would allow countries to further integrate and cooperate on tax and security and finance, while a peripheral group will continue in the bloc with looser ties.

However, the move is likely to ruffle the feathers of Central European alliance, the Visegrad Group, including the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia, which formed to tackle the escalating migrant crisis.

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We certainly learned from the history of the last years, that there will be as well a European Union with different speeds

Angela Merkel

Poland has already expressed its criticism of the two-speed plan, with PiS chief Jaroslaw Kaczynski saying it would lead to the breakdown of the Union.

He said: Only relations between states based on equality and the right to self-govern will ensure the future of the European Union.

But Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg, a group of the EU's founding members, have already expressed their support.

And speaking recently, German Chancellor Angela Merkel hinted EU leaders may commit to a Union of different speeds when they make a major declaration on its future during a Rome summit next month.

She said: "We certainly learned from the history of the last years, that there will be as well a European Union with different speeds, that not all will participate every time in all steps of integration. I think this may be in the Rome declaration as well.

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Her remarks were welcomed by Italian officials who said it would be easier to push ahead with reforms following Britains decision to leave the crumbling bloc.

Sandro Gozi, Italys Europe minister, said: We want to have a core shared by everyone and then there will be specific policies in which certain countries can move ahead, without other countries imposing a veto.

In a union of 27 countries it is utopian that everyone can move forward with the same timing and objectives.

A group can act as political vanguard and proceed in a more expeditious way to reach new common objectives, such as defence, economic security, combating inequalities and support to the young people.

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He addd: With the UK outside the EU it will probably be easier to move ahead with greater cooperation in this field. It will be a win-win situation.

The union of "different speeds" has long been riven by debate about whether all countries must commit to full integration including the single currency, or whether some can go at different paces.

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However, it is now on the agenda as the EU faces a string of challenges this year including Brexit , the election of Donald Trump and several high-stakes national elections where populist parties with anti-EU agendas could make inroads.

Link:
EU founder states risk FURIOUS BACKLASH as Italy joins calls for two-speed bloc - Express.co.uk