(Photo credit: Allianz Knowledge Partnersite)

How do you measure the worth or suffering of someone’s life? We’ve all seen the ads where a white man walks through desolate streets as malnourished children cling to his hands. He tells us that we can help and that these children can be helped for just a dollar a day. So why do these commercials play year after year if all that is needed is a dollar a day?

The truth is that a dollar a day tells you very little about those children, the reason for their lack of nourishment, or the history or their countries, communities, and families. For years international agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have been using the Human Development Index (HDI) created by the United Nations Development Program. The HDI is a set of statistics used to rank a country based on “human development” (i.e. mortality rates, life expectancy, etc.) The original idea was to “to shift the focus of development economics from national income accounting to people centered policies.”

The HDI and its statistics built such programs as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and many had criticisms. Some argued that the HDI was still too nation focused or that measuring material wealth could never promote “human development” thus ending poverty. Just yesterday the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) of Oxford University and the Human Development Report Office of the UNDP announced a new way to measure poverty called the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI). Director of the UNDP Human Development Report Office, Dr. Jeni Klugman, said. “The MPI provides a fuller measure of poverty than the traditional dollar-a-day formulas.” She noted that the MPI assesses critical factors at the family level and it will be used to compliment the HDI by examining broader aspects of well-being.

As our understandings of the root causes of poverty increase so must our means of measuring its affects. While some are focused on pulling our heart strings with “dollar a day” lines, the larger development institutions are working to become more innovative in their approaches to measure poverty.

While the MPI is a positive step in the right direction, it seems that it will still be very broadly focused and may still lose the “people centered” perspective. As large development institutions focus and innovate measures for poverty, why have they not just asked those most affected?

(Photo Credit: see above)

Anti-HIV Gel May Take Years to Hit Market

Is 39% reduction enough? The dust has barely settled after the announcement of the first positive results from a microbicide trial, but scientists and policy makers are already asking themselves, ‘What’s next?’ “It’s very early, we still need to analyze all the data – and the study collected a lot of very good data – and understand it better before we get to the point of developing a product,” Mitchell Warren, head of the AIDS Vaccine Advocacy Coalition (AVAC), said at the International AIDS Conference in Vienna. More:

• Hunting for a ‘Cure” for HIV
• A gel that puts HIV prevention in women’s hands
• Anti-HIV gel a “step forward” for HIV research

A Radical New AIDS Treatment Strategy

UNAIDS has launched a “simpler, more cost-effective approach to HIV treatment” The approach, dubbed “Treatment 2.0″, aims to drastically scale up testing and treatment using current best practices and future innovations in antiretroviral (ARV) drugs and diagnostics. UNAIDS estimates that successful implementation of Treatment 2.0 could avert 10 million deaths by 2025, and reduce new infections by one-third.

African Leaders Seek Solution to Maternal and Infant Mortality

At the 15th African Union (AU) Summit in Uganda leaders and health experts will meet to reassess key health goals. In 2000, African governments agreed to reduce by two-thirds the number of mothers and children who die annually from pregnancy-related complications and preventable childhood illnesses. Ten years later, little has been achieved on that noble commitment, as statistics show an African woman’s risk of dying in child birth is still one in 11 compared to a 1 in 7,300 risk among women in developed countries.

The Buck Stops with Hospital CEOs

In South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal Province, Dr Sibongiseni Dhlomo told the heads of the seven major hospitals that they will be held accountable for failing systems at their institutions. “If we want to turn around the tide of health outcomes that are terrible in this country, then you have to look at KwaZulu-Natal,” said Dhlomo. “We have the highest rates of TB, HIV and infant mortality and a large population.”

More than five million people receiving HIV treatment

WHO estimates that 1.2 million more people received HIV treatment in 2009 than in 2008. In addition HIV-related mortality can be reduced by 20% in the next five years if guidelines for early treatment are put into action.

New Mosquito’s Buzz Worse than its Bite

A malaria-proof mosquito has finally been developed and Kenya is expected to use it to eradicate the disease in seven years. Researchers at the University of Arizona, US, say they have made the perfect insect. The Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation, which starts a national data collection exercise on malaria indicators Saturday morning, says it will use a combination of tools, including bed nets, education, new innovations and medicines to meet the 2017 targets.

Vaccine Trialists Sue US Drugs Firm for Billions

Victims of the 1996 Pfizer meningitis trovan vaccine test which caused over 200 deaths and several others permanent disability have again sued the drugs manufacturing giant for a whopping sum of $384 billion.

You, too, Can Help Fight Niger’s Famine

In poverty-stricken Niger, it comes as no surprise that drought is pushing the most vulnerable people to the brink of hunger. Right? But then you hear a statistic like this one, with the power to shock even the most cynical: right now, fully half of the country’s 13.4 million inhabitants are facing famine.

More: Aid Caravan to the East

Dire Humanitarian Situation Continues to Grip Somalia

Withdrawn aid due to Al-Shabab’s bombings in Kampala have left the Somali people with even less international assistance. It is vital to ensure adequate funding to assist the 3.2 million people – or more than 40 per cent of the population – who rely on international aid, a senior United Nations aid official stressed this week.

Other news:

• How to prevent HIV? Researchers say, try treating it
• When search engines deal in fake drugs

As a previous member of the Michigan State University SCOUT BANANA chapter, I am absolutely thrilled to begin my service as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uganda starting in just a few weeks.  I know many young (and older!) people who have considered doing the Peace Corps, so I’d like to detail what my work will probably entail (not to mention the equally-challenging cross-cultural adjustment, language acquisition, being far from home and family for 27 months, etc.).  However, every volunteer is in a different situation and has a different set of skills and experience – therefore everyone ends up doing many different things!

I’ve been given a job title, program, and job description, but nothing about the details of my job are clear yet, and probably won’t be for a long time to come. Part of the model of Peace Corps, and any type of grassroots participatory development work, is doing needs assessments in your community and doing what the people there are interested in and need, not what your international organization deems necessary (radical thinking, I know). So the details of my work are still yet to be determined, but here is the general idea of what I’ll be doing:

Program: Community Health and Economic Development (CHED)
Job Title: Agricultural Extension Volunteer
Your Primary Duties: Volunteers in our Community Health and Economic Development Program work as staff members in a variety of host organizations in Uganda. Uganda’s Ministry of Health, and local and international organizations request Volunteers to assist them with developing and implementing programs with the goals of improving overall levels of community health and economic development, preventing HIV/AIDS among adults and youth, caring for orphans and vulnerable children, and supporting people living with AIDS, their families, and their caregivers. As an Agricultural Extension Volunteer it is important for you to know that more than 80% of Ugandans depend on subsistence agriculture for livelihood.

The info packet then goes on to explain a number of activities with which I could be involved with the overall goal of improving livelihoods through agriculture, especially for people affected by HIV/AIDS and youth. I’m really hoping for a livestock/animal husbandry post (I majored in animal science and plan on veterinary school after Peace Corps)! However, volunteers always get involved with secondary projects, as described below:

While your primary assignment will be work in an advisory role full-time with a local host organization or government agency, there is little that goes on in your community that falls wholly outside of your role as a Community Health and Economic Development Volunteer. Your primary assignment will be the door through which you enter and initially come to know your community, allowing you to identify activities that are of interest to your community as a whole, and that further enhance your sense of fulfillment and professional development…

Oftentimes, secondary projects are among the most fulfilling to Volunteers. Such projects may include working with a local women’s group to improve their health practices; teaching adults basic computer skills; teaching English or basic reading and writing to low-literacy adults in your community; setting up girls’ empowerment or sports camps with students in local schools, to name a few such possible secondary activities.

Hopefully that gives you some insight into what some Peace Corps Volunteers do!  Others going with me to Uganda include economic development, NGO development, youth development, and community health volunteers, so we will all be involved in a variety of projects.  I leave the U.S. on August 10 and will be in training until October 21, at which point I will begin service at my assigned post.  While I’ll be focusing most of my posts on this blog on my actual work, thoughts on development and aid work in Africa, etc., I’ll also be posting more of my personal experiences on my own blog for those who are interested.

(Photo Credit: Amazon)

History has set African health care up for failure. Lack of trained health workers places a massive burden on many African health care systems, inadequate or non-existent infrastructures make provision of basic needs like food and water impossible, debt and limited budgets move health care to a lower financial priority, medications are expensive and multinational pharmaceuticals want to make big profits, colonialism, apartheid, neo-colonialism, and the effects of an oppressed history perpetuate inadequacies in health care.

The varied record of health in Africa over the past century is inseparable from the history of change in control over political institutions and change in the organization of economic production. In the early years of colonial rule some governments relied on forced labor; in parts of colonial Africa, especially in the eastern and southern parts of the continent, male workers migrated from rural homes, leaving their families behind; in the postcolonial years class differentiation has become more pronounced, with some workers permanently separated from their roots in the countryside.[1]

Feierman and Janzen are right on target again in describing the scene of African health in relation to colonialism, politics, and history. African countries inherited health care systems from colonial authorities, but very often there was no health workforce to fill the void of colonial medical professionals. One Frenchman wrote,

La suele excuse de la colonisation c’est la medecin [the only excuse for colonialism is the doctor] – Hubert Lyantey (1926)[2]

If nothing else colonization was a positive in establishing health care systems and providing professional doctors? I wish I could agree, but mission societies that often ran health services relied on negative images of Africans.[3] The famed Dr. Livingstone was a doctor with the London Missionary Society and is best known for his explorations of the continent that allowed colonial empires to penetrate further into and conquer the African interior.

The slow demise of colonization did not end Western interference in Africa. Well into the 1980s and 1990s some African populations remained under the oppressive control of Western and minority populations. This control led directly to the ill health of those populations, notable South Africa and Mozambique. Black South Africans were denied basic health care services, training, and other needs.[4] South Africa fought a proxy war in Mozambique that specifically targeted the destruction of health care infrastructures. In African countries that gained earlier independence there were other powers to face.

[...] the IMF and World Bank have much to answer for. [Their] policies have eroded Africa’s health care systems and intensified the poverty of Africa’s people. – Salih  Booker[5]

Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) and other policies forced by Western institutions made the development from colonialism to independence that much more difficult for African countries. As Hunter writes, these policies often increased the poverty of African populations as opposed to providing for their basic needs. Health became a lower priority as African countries fell into debt because of loans from the IMF and SAPs of the World Bank. Even today with the economic recession African governments are cutting their health budgets to make ends meet. Health services should be the last item cut from a budget as health is central to all other human development.

Health is a major issue in Africa as the basic needs becoming increasingly difficult to provide and there have already been numerous reforms and attempted mechanisms to provide adequate health care.

[2] Hunter, 136.

[3] Ibid, 144.

[4] Hill, 6.

[5] Hunter, 47.

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American Food Aid: Saving Lives, or US Jobs

Change.org takes on US food assistance and its implications for foreign countries. Most often US food aid has very negative and often damaging effects on local communities and economies.

Swaziland: Poor Health Services Hamper PMTCT Progress

While much progress has been made in reducing HIV transmission, many are worried that the lack of adequate health workers and centers will reverse the advances that Swaziland has made.

Who’s Tracking the World’s Biggest ARV Programme?

South Africa runs what is probably the world’s largest ARV programme – over 700,000 people are receiving ARVs at public sector facilities. The South African National AIDS Council (SANAC) reports on the national program to fight HIV/AIDS. With good and bad news, the report demonstrates that there needs to be better implementation, monitoring, and evaluation.

Cameroonians Arrested for Operating Illegal Hospital

The largest issue with this article was not that there was a hospital started by local Cameroonians, but instead that they were distributing unregistered and illegal Chinese medicines. Is this an example of the growing influences of Chinese investment and aid? The hospital registered and defrauded over 2,000 people.

Why Studying Human Migration Can Help Stop Malaria

You may often hear this argument when talking about the spread of Tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS and other STDs, but not often for malaria. One of Change.org’s authors gives a great history and background on the spread of malaria. The World Health Organization (WHO) has written since 1957 that population movement exacerbates the spread of malaria.

Uganda: HIV/AIDS Centers Turn Away New Patients

As a direct cause of the reduction in funding from US government agencies, centers that provide treatment and prevention have begun turning away patients because they have to make budgetting cuts.

Read more about the Obama Administration’s Global Health Initiative that is causing issues across Africa in regards to funding for HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention.

Also on Health in Uganda:

• Public Irritated by Yet Another Condom Shortage
• Why Uganda Shouldn’t Criminalize HIV/AIDS Transmission
• Want to Help Uganda? Send Condoms 95% of condoms are supplied by foreign donors

In Mali, Using Cell Phones to Create Patient Records

New Echoing Green fellow Josh Nesbit and his organization FrontlineSMS:Medic have partnered with the Mali Health Organizing Project (MHOP) to streamline and clean up patient records to improve health services.

Other Articles of Interest:

• Troubled Water Aid Watch chronicles the issues with PlayPumps
• A Miner-Led Tuberculosis Crisis
• West Africa: 10 million face Hunger in Region
• Nigeria: Researchers seek ways to End Maternal Deaths
• Africa: Enticing Health Workers to the Outback