HUNGARY: VICE-President Dr Philip Mpango has called upon nations across the world to put family welfare at centre of all development plannings.
He made the call on Thursday on behalf of President, Dr Samia Suluhu Hassan, at the on-going 5th Budapest Demographic Summit in Hungarian capital.
Dr Mpango said the Tanzania has been enhancing family welfare as the foundation for strong bonding and understanding within society.
“Family is the first and most important social unit, it is the nest for rearing and socialisation of children, it improves happiness and even health metrics,” he said.
Dr Mpango said the demerits of a dysfunctional family are increasing school dropouts, street children, alcoholics, drugs addicts as well as other social vices.
He said globally, families are affected by the climate change affects which leads to crop failure and food shortage. He said in some African countries, wars and political instability are the major source of family misery and insecurity.
Therefore, Dr Mpango said worldwide collective efforts on strengthening family welfare that cherish religion is vital to foster humankinds’ safety and sustainability.
He said Tanzania has been undertaking different efforts to upscale family living standards, including through the Tanzania Social Action Fund (TASAF) that acts as a safety net to assist the most vulnerable households with seed money and employment opportunities.
He urged nations across the world to implement international policies, programmes and laws on protection of family and peace at large.
He said the United Nations (UN) should keep on collaborating with the African Union (UN) on curbing challenges associated with an increase in population which pose pressure on health and education services, employment opportunities, food shortage and illegal migration.
Besides family welfare, he said Tanzania is running various investment projects on social and economic infrastructures such as water supply, electricity and education.
He said the government has introduced fee free education from pre-primary school to Advanced Level, while also saying that to ensure the country creates jobs, Building a Better Tomorrow (BBT) programme has been initiated to attract many youths to engage in agriculture, livestock and fishing activities.
On hosting refugees, he said Tanzania is so far hosting about 400,000 refugees from the neighbouring countries searching for peace and greener pasture of their livelihoods.
Dr Mpango called upon the nations across the world to support Tanzania in providing humanitarian aid to the refugees as their presence in the country puts further demand on among others, social services such as water, education and land.
He said improvement on security in every country regionally and globally through joint peacekeeping missions and prevention of terrorism will mitigate the increasingly immigration wave.
Additionally, he assured the Hungarian government of strengthened diplomatic relations in areas such as education and human resource’s capacity building, agro investment, agribusiness, tourism and technology.
The two-day meeting that opened yesterday themed “Family is the Foundation for Safety” has attracted various heads of state, policy makers and academicians among other stakeholders across the world.