Page 10 - Issue-15

ELITE ISSUE 15, JANUARAY 2020 PAGE 10

CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS’ WELL-BEING JOINT CONFERENCE; A

PRODUCT OF A FRUITFUL PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN FEPS AND UNICEF

Cairo : Fareeda Khalifa, Habiba Atef, Farah Haitham, Hana Zakareyya and Yasmin Tarek

Photo for Mr. Bruno Maes (right) Unicef Represntataive in Egypt and Professor Mahmoud El Said FEPS Dean
Prof. Dr. Mahmoud El Said started the opening speech of FEPS-UNICEF joint The first session was titled “Children’s Well-being and Malnutrition in
conference. Dr. Mahmoud declared that this conference is a significant Egypt” and was chaired by Professor Dr. Heba Nassar, former vice
outcome of a comprehensive partnership between FEPS and UNICEF. The president of community service at Cairo University. The talk started with
partnership, which was launched in November 2018, aims to enhance Dr. Heba expressing her gratitude to be part of such a great event like the
coordination in the field of knowledge production, knowledge dissemination, cooperation of FEPS and the UNICEF, moreover, congratulating the
and capacity building in a number of areas of common interests such as social participants on their respectful accomplishments. She then presented the
protection, inclusion, health, nutrition and child protection as well as public first paper by Dr. Racha Ramadan (associate professor, FEPS) and Ms.
finance. Then he added that, a call for paper was declared last February Sarah Wahby (senior research associate J-PAL) titled “Gender Norms and
targeting three main categories of researchers (undergraduate students in Children Malnutrition in Egypt and Jordan.”
their 4th year, postgraduate candidates, researchers and professor affiliated As gender norms play a crucial role in children’s nutrition status, especially
to FEPS) to participate in the policy making process and the evident based in patriarchal societies with culture of son preference as the Arab region,
solution that can improve children and adolescent well-being. Finally, he said therefore, the current paper investigates the relationship between gender
that a scientific committee from FEPS and UNICEF reviewed all the papers and nutritional outcomes through different angles. The paper studies the
carefully and chooses the best paper from each category. impact of sex of the child, sex of the head, mother’s characteristics and
Mr. Bruno Maes, UNICEF’s Representative in Egypt built upon Dr. Mahmoud’s gender norms in the community where the child lives on three nutritional
speech and continued to welcome the attendees. He inaugurated the outcomes; stunted, wasted and being underweight, using Demographic
conference and stressed that it is the result of more than a year of hard work and Health surveys for Egypt (2014) and Jordan (2012). Consequently, the
and partnership from both FEPS and UNICEF, along with the researchers once paper conveys three main messages: The first one is that mothers play a
the call for papers was opened. He said that UNICEF values its partnership with significant role in their children nutritional status. Second, gender norms
FEPS as it is critical to engage young people as agents of change, and would like and social context matters in Jordan. Lastly, being stunted, wasted, or
to achieve their full potential in alignment with the goals of 2030’s national underweight have different determinants that vary from country to
development strategy and UNPDF 2018-2022. He said that the challenges faced another. So, policy makers have to tackle each Malnutrition outcome
by the Egyptian government are numerous, yet there are efforts and research separately to decrease their prevalence, taking into consideration the
done by the Egyptian academia to help plan ahead and disseminate knowledge, social context for each country.
which UNICEF aims to support. He emphasized the importance of partnerships The discussant was Dr. Omneia Helmy (vice dean for graduate studies,
between governments and intergovernmental organizations on one hand, and FEPS). She first congratulated Dr. Racha and Ms. Sarah on their paper. Then
long-standing academic institutions on the other hand, in order to reach more she commented several comments concerning the paper as a general and
child-sensitive policies and leave a legacy of advocacy for children’s rights. He specific pages. The most highlighted comment was that she though that the
renewed UNICEF’s commitment and support to the Egyptian government in its surveys where at a long period ago and that the later period on these
efforts for children and highlighted that no child is left behind. surveys witnessed several developments and changes that might have
affected the results of the surveys.

ELITE ISSUE 15, JANUARAY 2020 PAGE 10