Topic: 2026 – Digital Equity for Children
Country: Seychelles
Delegate Name: Ella Johnson
Ella Johnson
Seychelles position paper
UNICEF: A) Combating Malnutrition: B) Digital Equity For Children
The United Nations Multi-Country office for Mauritius and Seychelles is located in Port Louis, Mauritius. In Seychelles the United Nations has signed a United Nations Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework (UNSDCF) for 2024-2028. This is the most important piece to setting up and pursuing UN development activities at country level, it’s also setting a more collective response from the UN towards Seychelles and to support and address national priorities and create a more inclusive, resilient, and sustainable future around the themes of People, Planet and Prosperity.
Combating Malnutrition
Ending hunger being the second to top Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) in Seychelles says a lot about where they stand as a country and overall as a continent; Africa. In June of 2020 a statement was published in collaboration with the United Nations Economic Commissions for Africa (ECA) and the African Union Commission (AUC) about their overall security and nutrition. It stated that they were not on track to meet their Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 to end all forms of malnutrition. The number of hungry people had risen 47.9 million since 2024 and then stood at a total of 250.3 million. At the time all sources pointed to the weather extremes and economic shutdowns due heavily from the COVID-19 pandemic. This reported that Africa, in all, was not sustaining an affordable, nutritious food source to a majority of the population which reflected in high numbers of maternal and child malnutrition.
Seychelles being a smaller island country built up of 115 islands with a total of 460 square kilometers, it has a very small power on being able to influence trade routes, that doesn’t mean they just don’t need and don’t get those resources though. Seychelles turning to produce their own crops and promoting the growth of small scale farmers may be the next step. It helps them move towards a more self-reliant role and a better situation to sustain themselves along with increasing their own food security. If it does not adopt these policies it could be looking towards a turnout of up to 71.1% lack of access to nutritional intake in children.
Digital Equity For Children
The United Nations stands for their children and their futures, so does Seychelles. Being an active member of the United Nations they made a direct promise to every kid; to protect and fulfill their rights. This is fulfilled by many actions taken in many different circumstances in this case, the digital realm.
In April 20203, a publication made by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) spoke on the resilience in educational systems in Seychelles. Seychelles had agreed on three action plans to complete with their Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) 3 and 4 in mind; One of the most important ones being their quality education. The Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development (MEHRD) is aware of the several challenges Seychelles is facing in terms of distance education mechanisms and the issue of equity since not all households have access to online learning platforms or anything online for that matter. Seychelles is well aware of the issues in its education system and the online equity portion and could improve majorly by training its educational professionals is how to teach remotely and digitally along with working with the Alliance with Affordable Internet (A4AI) on an affordability target to get more digital learning children the right resources needed to ensure a fair education.
Seychelles top five Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) include a fair and well education for all and to end hunger and malnutrition. Both topics are seen and in the works of being improved with many new collaborations and new theories on the best ways to solve. By looking towards more local production and nutritional food sources and getting mandatory digital education online and available for all, Seychelles could improve both of their Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and move towards a more resilient and sustainable future.
