Tag: microfinance

Global Health News Last Week

by ihsection, posted in News

Note: There will be no news round-up next week, as the IH section will be conducting its usual array of activities during APHA’s Annual Meeting.  Please tune in for updates on section sessions and activites at the conference.  Meanwhile, you can get your global health news fix from the DAWNS digest, Humanosphere, or the Healthy Dose.

October 16 was World Food Day.
October 17 was International Day for the Eradication of Poverty.

POLITICS AND POLICY

  • Scientists are warning officials negotiating a global treaty on mercury that banning the deadly chemical completely would be dangerous for public health because of the chemical’s use in vaccines. 
  • The Washington Post runs an editorial critical of the GOP presidential candidates’ hostility toward foreign aid.
  • An influential panel of MPs warned that changes in UK aid policies may make overseas aid more prone to corruption and misuse.
  • Attendees at the Asia Pacific Conference on Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights have called on countries in the region to introduce comprehensive sexuality education in schools.
  • The Kaiser Family Foundation has released a report which finds that global HIV/AIDS funding dropped by 10% in 2010.

PROGRAMS

  • HP Signed a Memorandum of Understanding with USAID to collaborate in the fight against global poverty through initiatives directed at issues such as public health.
  • GAVI CEO Seth Berkley pens an op-ed in Huffington Post on the economic value of childhood vaccines.
  • The Pan African Parliament has passed a resolution that urges African nations to prioritize maternal, newborn and child health programs.
  • USAID is initiating research to find out whether developing world families will adopt a new cooking technology and adapt their cooking methods to save their health.
  • At an event in Washington, the Aspen Institute’s Global Leaders Council called for increased accessed to contraception worldwide. 
  • Microfinance initiatives to fund development could benefit from reinvigorating their aims and taking on new, integrated approaches, according to experts at the 2011 International Forum on the Social and Solidarity Economy in Montreal.

RESEARCH

  • A new study, by researchers from the National Institutes of Health, Gilead Sciences Inc. and universities in Belgium and Italy, suggests that a microbicide gel, which was originally developed to fight AIDS in Africa, could lower the incidence of herpes in many women.
  • RTS,S a malaria vaccine developed by GlaxoSmithKline, is showing great of promise in the early stages of its huge clinical trial.  The American Society for Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Council Member and Science Director at the PATH Malaria Control Program, Rick Steketee, explores the impact of the new RTS,S clinical trial results and what this breakthrough means for science and neglected tropical disease research. On the other hand, Sarah Boseley wonders where the money will come from once the vaccine has passed its trials, and Karen Grepin is not as excited about the new GSK malaria trial results as many others.
  • Adults who have fallen behind on mortgage payments exhibited higher rates of depression and are skipping meals and medications because they cannot pay the bills, a study published in the American Journal of Public Health found.
  • Teenage drivers have fewer crashes after they’ve been driving for a while, but new research in the American Journal of Public Health suggests that a few months behind the wheel do not improve their driving skills much.
  • A recent study finds that the best way to fight TB in patients with HIV is to treat as early as possible.

DISEASES AND DISASTERS

  • The famine in Somalia isn’t getting much public attention, but not because things are improving. Aid workers predict things will get worse before they get better. Much-needed rain is coming, but the rainfall could deepen the crisis for the four million people there who need help.
  • Numerous UN agencies are ready to be deployed if Southeast Asian nations ravaged by flooding request for assistance.
  • A report by Roll Back Malaria Partnership released at the start of the Gates Foundation’s Global Malaria Forum says that the world is making positive steps towards eradicating malaria. Specifically, 29 countries are on track to stop malaria within a decade.
  • Environmental hazards sicken or kill millions of people — soot or smog in the air, for example, or pollutants in drinking water. But the most dangerous stuff happens where the food is made — in peoples’ kitchens.
  • World Health Organization officials say the rapid and extensive globalization of food production has increased the incidence of food contamination worldwide.
  • Speculators in the agricultural commodities markets are forcing grocery prices to rise too quickly and erratically, according to some top economists marking World Food Day Sunday.
  • Climate change poses an immediate and serious threat to global health and stability, as floods and droughts destroy people’s homes and food supplies and increase mass migration, experts warn.
  • A survey of 87 countries showed more than half the countries reported more or much more awareness of mental illnesses in the past three years. Unfortunately, there is not a whole lot of new money behind that awareness.

There is No Silver Bullet

by Jessica, posted in Aid Effectiveness

There is no silver bullet and frankly you probably don’t need one. It is far more important to be able to find the right kind of gun, be able to load the gun, be able to aim the gun, and perhaps most importantly, be able to figure out where the werewolf is. –Matthew Oliphant

Vampire Selene uses bullets with silver nitrate to fight off werewolves in "Underworld." Unfortunately, we do not have "silver nitrate bullets" for global health problems.

I always scratch my head a bit when the global health community is dismayed at the revelation that one of its previously hailed “silver bullets” is revealed to not be the miracle cure it was thought to be. The latest disappointment making its way across the blogosphere right now is microfinance: after shady lending practices and harassment of borrowers (driving some to suicide) were uncovered on the part of commercial microlenders in India, the development community began wringing its hands at the unfolding political scandal. The forced retirement of Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, Nobel laureate, and pioneer of the microfinance institution, looks like the proverbial nail in the coffin of microfinance’s status as the one-stop solution for ending poverty. Now experts are holding panel discussions to debate whether or not microfinance “works.”

This is not the first time we have found ourselves crestfallen at the failure of a silver bullet. When evaluating the results of his “Grand Challenges in Global Health,” Bill Gates admitted that the organization had been “naïve” in its expectations of breakthroughs in vaccine development. He underestimated the time it takes to move new products from the lab through clinical trials and manufacturing. “I thought some would be saving lives by now,” he said, “and it’ll be more like in 10 years from now.” Tell me about it: I worked for a biotechnology start-up in college, and the time it took to get approval for phase I clinical trials allowed bad management to completely unravel the company – it took less than five years. By the time we got the green light from the FDA, the company was being bought out, and we never got to test the product.

Many are also astounded at the current descent from grace of Greg Mortenson, of Three Cups of Tea fame. Details of his inspiring Quixote-esque story of building schools for girls in rural Pakistan and Afghanistan are now being questioned, and donors are appalled at reports of mismanaged funds and schools being used as storage sheds. But don’t we already know that graft happens, and rookies make (sometimes colossal) mistakes? How reasonable was it to expect the Central Asia Institute, Mortenson’s charity, to “fix” Afghanistan by building schools? On the other hand, why are countries and large-scale donors pulling funding and creating a fuss over the graft that the Global Fund revealed through its own investigations?

Why are we continually disillusioned when the simple solutions to the complex problems of global health and poverty turn out to not be so simple? Part of the problem is marketing. Saundra Schimmelpfennig, who has made it her mission to point out and tackle issues surrounding charity (mis)representation and shady fundraising practices, points out that

Whether it’s TOMS A Day Without Shoes or CAI’s Pennies for Peace, schools and teachers are using what are essentially commercials for a charitable product to teach children about the larger world and philanthropy. As is the case with most commercials, these “awareness raising activities” often distort or over-simplify the problems faced in ways that benefit their own organization.

This is extremely worrying as the children brought up on these myths and misconceptions are going to turn into businessmen, philanthropists, and lawmakers. How will the decisions they make be impacted by a distorted view of what the world is like and how to really help?

Another part seems to be that despite each revelation, we are constantly drawn to the prospect that we will somehow still find that magic “something,” that the next innovation or big idea will be the much-sought-after silver bullet. Despite coming to terms with his naiveté, Gates is now saying that energy innovation is the key to beating climate change. Programmers are busily developing cell phone apps in the hope that cell phones can help end poverty.

The problems that we devote our careers to tackling are nowhere near simple, and it is unreasonable to expect to find simple solutions to them. Heck, we don’t even adequately fund the silver bullets we already have. As professionals more knowledgeable than me continually point out, our best bet is to strengthen health systems, focus on measurable improvements, admit and learn from failure, and – perhaps most importantly – have a little patience.