The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with a view of supporting critical business continuity during the COVID19 pandemic, has handed personal protective equipment and ICT tools worth over 930,000 dollars to Ethiopia’s public service.
The COVID19 response items were handed over to the Federal Civil Service Commission on behalf of Ethiopia’s Government.
The items will be distributed to 34 Ministries and other public agencies, including the Ministry of Health, the Ministry Peace, the Police Commission, and several Regional States as well as local manufacturing industries industrial parks.
The provision of PPE will equip public service providers to safely and effectively continue their work while preventing further spread of the disease.
The handover is part of UNDP’s global COVID19 response that emphasis is on helping countries prevent, manage, and, more importantly, mitigate impacts of the pandemic.
Here in Ethiopia, UNDP led a UN exercise to Assess the Socio-Economic Impact of the Pandemic on the Country that calls on an integrated and whole government approach and avoids artificial demarcation between response and recovery as well as between the health, humanitarian and socio-economic dimensions of this pandemic.
The response and recovery plan focuses on the retention of jobs, maintaining enterprises, provision of social protection, and ensuring the resilience of the rural economy.
Last month, as part of its response to COVID-19 pandemic, UNDP Ethiopia has also handed over 76,210 Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) including facemasks, gloves, and thermometers to the Ministry of Trade and Industry to be distributed to local manufacturing industries.
