Iran Chamber of Commerce, Industries, Mines, and Agriculture (ICCIMA) and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) signed an MoU on Tuesday to combine efforts to promote Children’s welfare.
The agreement was signed by President of Iran Chamber Gholam Hossein Shafei and UNICEF Representative in Iran Robin Nandy.
Speaking during the ceremony the Iran Chamber chief referred to the presence of Iranian business leaders and their extended support to social matters, enumerating the contribution of the Iran Chamber in social issues such as school construction, providing educational scholarships, support to health and hygiene efforts and housing for the less privileged classes of the society.
He stressed that based on official statistics by Iran’s Ministry of Education, some 40 percent of the rural schools in the country are built by the economic activists.
Shafei also said that the Iran Chamber has also provided educational scholarships to the needy students so that a significant number of such students are supported by the Chamber.
The UNICEF representative, for his part, mentioned that one of the top priorities for UNICEF is to work closely with private sector organizations and institutions and to benefit from the experience and comparative advantage of this sector in enhancing children’s lives.
Nandy also pointed out that the challenges and problems children in Iran face are changing due to the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak.
Children have faced threats to their well-being as a result of the economic disruption, new threats posed by lockdowns, “stay at home” directives and months of lost education due to school closures, he said.
“We have to position ourselves to support the government to address these threats and also threats due to economic sanctions and environmental challenges,” he added.