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| UNFPA at work in Eritrea Programme Highlights: Building from Scratch Providing Reproductive Health and Family Planning Services to Youth Population Education and Family welfare: Nothing Succeeds like Success Box: Profiles in Change: Two Women Who Make a Difference |
UNFPA at work in
Eritrea Eritrea is one of Africa’s newest countries and one of the poorest. After a 31-year war of liberation, the country finally won independence in 1991. Years of warfare took a grim toll on the people and the land. Close to 50,000 Eritreans were killed and 10,000 were disabled. Much of the country’s infrastructure was destroyed, and many cities and towns were reduced to rubble. Bombed out and rusted tanks, trucks and half-tracks litter the landscape. In 1993, a national referendum overwhelmingly declared the country an independent state; the first free elections are set for 1998. As one former fighter declared: "We have won the war; now we must also win the peace!" Eritrea is a poor country but one that works reasonably well. There is none of the street crime of Nairobi or Addis Ababa. Also, despite being divided almost equally between Muslims and Christians, it has none of the religious strife that has sundered the Sudan. All the same, it will be a steep climb out of poverty. Nature, war, population growth and poverty itself have devastated the environment. Most people still rely on wood for cooking and heating, burning the equivalent of 4 million cubic metros of wood a year. In 1950, nearly 20 per cent of the country was covered with forests. Now, the forests have all gone: in much of the central highlands, around the capital, Asmara, not a single tree remains. Flood and drought have completed the work, ravaging the hills and leaving the scars of erosion. Eritrea’s population has been estimated at about 3.6 million, but no one will know for certain until a national census has been carried out. The population is growing fast as refugees return and the country rebuilds: the rate of expansion was estimated at just under 3 per cent a year in 1996. The average family still has six or seven children. Infant mortality rates remain high, about 135 deaths for every 1,000 live births, and maternal mortality is enough to make even hardened fighters shudder—up to 1,000 women die for every 100,000 live births. |
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