According to the Fund’s representation on the island, during his visit, which will last until next Wednesday, he will exchange with national authorities, tour the projects developed by UNFPA in Cuba and participate in the 2022 Cuba-Health International Convention, inaugurated this Monday.

The senior official has a history of more than 30 years of strategic leadership in the fields of medicine, public and reproductive health, social justice and philanthropy.

Her academic career began at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Columbia University School of Public Health.

From 2014 to 2016, Kanem represented UNFPA in the United Republic of Tanzania, and in July of that year she was appointed UNFPA Deputy Executive Director with responsibility for programmes.

In addition, she was the founding president of ELMA Philanthropies Inc., a private institution whose work primarily targets children and youth in Africa, and she held the position of senior associate of the Lloyd Best Institute of the West Indies.

She has a medical degree from Columbia University (New York) and a master’s degree in Public Health from the University of Washington (Seattle), specializing in Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine. Likewise, she graduated with honors from Harvard University, where she studied History and Science.

Natalia Kanem is the fifth Executive Director of UNFPA since the Fund began operations in 1969.

(With information from Cubaminrex)

The two-kilowatt power equipment comes from the European Union and is manufactured in China, distributed in the four provinces of central Cuba (Camagüey, Ciego Ávila, Sancti Spíritus and Villa Clara), which were affected in 2017. by Hurricane Irma, specifically in the northern municipalities.

In statements to the local press, engineer Juan Carlos Lacaba, main specialist of the Renewable Energy Sources Business Unit, attached to the Provincial Electric Company, assured that the most remote coastal towns of Nuevitas, Sierra de Cubitas, Minas and Esmeralda will be the beneficiaries, in the case of Camagüey.

“The UNDP focuses with this donation on vulnerable families, with women with more than one child and that their housing was in unfavorable construction conditions, that is also the policy of the Cuban state, in addition all these nuclei were affected by Hurricane Irma, and they are people who do not have current by any means of the National Electroenergetic System”, he said.

Already in Camagüey, in the four mentioned coastal municipalities “109 panels of this type of the 342 have been assembled, and instructions and training have been given to people for their use, since there are equipment that cannot be connected because they have more power than the one admitted”, argued the engineer.

Modern panels, “one of the best that has entered Cuba, and these systems have advantages, since they resist inductive loads, they also have motors with a rotating process, and great autonomy due to their battery that allows them, even if the day is without sun or in a cold front, load up and put yourself at the service of the family”, according to Lacaba.

In July, the United Nations Undersecretary General and UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, Luis Felipe López-Calva, was in the largest of the Antilles and exchanged with Cuban authorities.

His stay was crucial to discuss the cooperation established by the Program with the Caribbean nation in the framework of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030, expressed in the National Economic and Social Development Plan.

(With information from Prensa Latina)

The loan, signed by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI), is intended for a project to improve the national response capacity against diseases such as Covid-19.

The execution of the budget contemplates the reinforcement of the infrastructure for the production of injectable antibiotics, parenteral solutions (serums), generic and biosimilar drugs, diagnosticians and medical equipment, the statement detailed.

Likewise, the entity highlighted that the financing will impact the treatment of people infected with Covid-19 and other communicable diseases, as well as the acquisition of health supplies and medical protection material to prevent contagion.

The UNDP office in the Caribbean nation stressed that the strengthening of the pharmaceutical industry and the production of 200 million doses of vaccines will contribute to reaching higher levels of economic productivity.

A scenario to which the development of innovative medicines and the modernization of technology will also contribute, with a view to diversification for the benefit of the Cuban national health system and other countries in the region, the institution stressed.

The executive president of CABEI, Dante Mossi, said that the initiative constitutes a health support response to protect the lives of Cuban families by strengthening the health system.

The financial entity, the text referred, granted the loan under the specialized mechanism established by that integrationist entity for activities and operations with Cuba.

UNDP collaborates globally with a view to building resilience in the face of the multidimensional crisis resulting from the Covid 19 pandemic.

In its Cuban chapter, the United Nations institution supports the implementation of donations to strengthen the production capacities of medicines, medical supplies and food, as part of the commitments of its Cooperation Framework with this nation.

(With information from PL)