English Analysis on World about Agriculture, Climate Change and Environment, Drought, Flood and more; published on 27 Oct 2021 by GCA
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) were launched in September 2015, made up of 17 Goals and 169 Targets that set out a plan of action that will shape the mainstream development agenda for the ...next 15 years1. There has already been much debate about how these Goals will be achieved, but the significant issue of drug policy reform has so far been ignored. This briefing aims to address this gap, to support discussions and demonstrate how global drug control policies are a cross-cutting development issue that impact upon a number of the SDGs.
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The question of amnesties has come to the forefront once again as the Central African Republic (CAR) started a new round of African Union-mediated peace negotiations on 24 January 2019. While rebel groups demanded a general amnesty as a non-negotiable condition, the government maintained strong oppo...sition to any new amnesty. The Khartoum peace agreement signed on 6 February 2019 did not uphold rebel groups’ demand for a general amnesty, but it leaves many grey areas concerning the question of amnesty and justice.
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The Operational guide: use of referral laboratories for the analysis of foodborne hazards in the Pacific aims to strengthen the food analysis capacity of Pacific Island countries and areas by identi...fying national and reference laboratories capable of testing for priority foodborne hazards. The Pacific Island countries and areas are often vulnerable to food safety incidents and emergencies due to their geographical distribution and dependence on food imports. The guide outlines key considerations for selecting referral laboratories and submitting samples to them, enabling continuous improvement of food safety systems and providing safe food for all. The target audiences are health and food safety authorities.
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Antibiotics and other antimicrobial agents are invaluable life savers, particularly in resource-limited countries where infectious diseases are abundant. Both uncomplicated and severe in...fections are potentially curable as long as the aetiological agents are susceptible to the antimicrobial drugs. The rapid rate with which antimicrobial agents are becoming ineffective due to resistance acquired as a result of unchecked overuse and misuse threatens to undo the benefit of controlling infections. The evidence for resistant microorganisms, many times to more than a single antimicrobial agent, has been observed globally. In Tanzania, there is evidence in the form of few scattered studies conducted in different parts of the country in a multitude of settings including health care facilities, the community, domesticated animals and wild animals
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The far-reaching impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the critical need for evidence-informed, transparent and inclusive decision-making. Policy-makers have grappled with complex choices amid...st uncertainty. They have constantly reassessed response measures while navigating their economic implications and unintended consequences on societal well-being. Effective communication of the basis for these decisions has also posed a challenge, requiring transparency and public trust.
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Annual and medium-term budget preparation processes are the platforms through which specific plans are transformed into actual resource allocation decisions. The aim of this Process Guide is to support key stakeholders involved in these processes (s...uch as the Cabinet, Ministries of Finance and Health, the Parliament, citizens, media, and civil society organizations) to reorient budgetary arrangements in order to facilitate the ability of national governments to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic by delivering, therapeutics, diagnostics, and vaccine services to their populations. Reorienting budgetary arrangements positions governments to sustain the capacity to mitigate and respond to COVID-19 while concurrently delivering other essential health services and working towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC). The reorientation process is an opportunity to better align budgetary arrangements to sustain systemic capacity to prevent emerging health threats over the short, medium, and long terms.
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The new WHO Guidelines on Sanitation and Health summarize the evidence on the effectiveness of a range of sanitation interventions and provide a comprehensive framework ...hlight medbox">for health-protecting sanitation, covering policy and governance measures, implementation of sanitation technologies, systems and behavioural interventions, risk-based management, and monitoring approaches. Critically, the guidelines articulate the role of the health sector in maximizing the health impact of sanitation interventions.
The guidelines also identify gaps in the evidence-base to guide future research efforts to improve the effectiveness of sanitation interventions.
(French, Spanish, Russian, Arabic in production)
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Prioritise education in conflict-affected areas:
Across the world 28 million1 primary school-age children living in conflict-affected countries are
out-of-school, and they form half of the world’s total out-of-school population. During conflict,...
infrastructure assets such as schools are damaged or completely destroyed during fighting. Children
may choose to stay away from school due to their and their family’s safety fears in the midst of
conflict, or the need to supplement their family’s income amidst conflict-related financial loss.
Children who are internally displaced by conflict face a particularly challenging task accessing
education due to the specific conditions created by their displacement, such as loss of livelihoods
making school fees hard to find, and discrimination from host communities. Children caught in
conflict are being deprived of their right to education2 and denied the opportunity to benefit from the
protective and life-sustaining mechanisms of education.
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In the following you can find 51 Planning tools for Mental Health and Psychosocial support in disasters, that have been derived from an anylsis of 282 Psychosocial Mental Health guidelines ...ss="attribute-to-highlight medbox">and 678 Tools. The single planning tools are structured according to the most relevant topics and can be used individually.
The purpose of the Action Sheets
Each Action Sheet is a planning tool in itself that can be used individually
Each Action Sheet is an entrypoint into the main recommendations for this specific topic and gives information on further readings, tools and practice examples.
Each Action Sheet gives advice on how to plan and enhance quality in the selected area and topic.
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This guidance is intended for use in developing standalone TB strategic plans, or TB interventions as part of multidisease or health sector plans. It describes key considerations and steps ...ss="attribute-to-highlight medbox">for strategic planning for TB in line with the World Health Organization’s End TB strategy, and the proposed structure of the NSP. The target audience of this publication are all stakeholders involved in national strategic planning for TB (e.g., ministry of health, other government ministries, private sector, civil society, affected communities, academic and research institutions, and technical and funding partners).
The current document is an update to the 2015 Toolkit to develop a national strategic plan for TB prevention, care and control.
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39 examples of field practices, and learnings from 20 countries, for all phases of humanitarian response. The report shows that deliberate and proa...ctive action is required to ensure that persons with disabilities from all constituencies are systematically included and meaningfully participate in DRR and humanitarian preparedness, response and recovery. It draws lessons from field practices, but does not provide technical guidance. The newly published IASC Guidelines are the reference document to seek in-depth theoretical and technical information.
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The development of this Operational Roadmap has been driven by a growing consensus in Ukraine on the need to prioritize activities that are urgently required to address the mental health and psychosocial needs of the country’s population ...ss="attribute-to-highlight medbox">and also the importance of basing the response on existing structures, resources and innovations introduced in reforms in past years.
According to this consensus, new resources mobilized by and for Ukraine should complement existing ones, in line with the national vision and with best international standards, and should be planned in a way that further strengthens the country’s mental health system.
The Government of Ukraine is committed to urgently addressing the mental health and psychosocial needs of the population, under the auspices of the First Lady of Ukraine and the leadership of the recently established Intersectoral Coordination Council for Mental Health and Psychological Assistance to Victims of the Armed Aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine (referred to in this document as the Intersectoral Coordination Council).
This Roadmap has been developed following a series of consultations with Ukrainian authorities and national and international agencies working in the area of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS) and engaged in emergency response in Ukraine. The consultation process was organized by the Ministry of Health of Ukraine (MOH) and supported by WHO Ukraine, under the auspices of the First Lady of Ukraine and in collaboration with the MHPSS Technical Working Group of Ukraine (MHPSS TWG Ukraine) and the IASC MHPSS Reference Group (IASC MHPSS RG), and building on substantial advances in the mental health sector under existing programmes in the country.
The Roadmap is informed by international technical guidance and national policies and plans, including the IASC Guidelines on MHPSS in Emergency Settings, the Minimum Services Package for MHPSS in Emergencies (MHPSS MSP), the IASC Common Monitoring and Evaluation Framework, the World Health Organization (WHO)’s Comprehensive Mental Health Action Plan 2013– 2030, the WHO European Framework for Action on Mental Health, the Concept for Development of Mental Health Care in Ukraine until 2030, the National Mental Health Action Plan for 2021–2023 and the National Recovery and Development Plan.
Informed by the overall goal of MHPSS assistance in Ukraine – to reduce suffering and improve the mental health and psychosocial well-being of the affected population – the Roadmap aims to provide a consolidated overview of envisioned MHPSS priorities, informed by the local context and the vision of the Government of Ukraine together with national and international partners, and with the best available evidence and resources, to all MHPSS stakeholders already engaged in or joining emergency response and recovery efforts in Ukraine.
As well as information on the context in Ukraine, the Roadmap includes:
• a list of evidence-based MHPSS interventions and services contextualized and introduced in Ukraine in recent years (described in Table 1) and
• a set of multisectoral actions to scale up MHPSS services in both the short and longer terms, informed by available evidence, international technical guidance and expert consensus (described in Table 2).
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This report presents findings from research conducted by Economist Impact to assess the health, demographic, social and economic impacts associated with different scenarios for financing the HIV epi...demic across 13 selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. The sponsorship of UNAIDS towards this report is gratefully acknowledged. However, the findings and ideas expressed herein represent those of Economist Impact. They do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of UNAIDS, nor do they engage the responsibility of UNAIDS.
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The report offers a snapshot of the drivers behind the persistent exclusion of persons with disabilities and proposes a framework to build an actionable agenda building on promising practices available in the region. The COVID-19 pandemic has laid b...are the urgent need to build more inclusive and resilient societies. The region has shown its resilience in recovering from many crises in the past. Today, we are at a crucial flection point where it is clear that universal policies and economic growth alone are insufficient to eradicate the remaining pockets of exclusion. A disability-inclusive recovery should be at the core of the region’s rebuilding strategy. This matters in its own right but is also of utmost importance for the sustainability of the region.
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In 2015, 5.9 million children under age five died (1). The major causes of child deaths globally are pneumonia, prematurity, intrapartum-related complications, neonatal sepsis, congenital anomalies, diarrhoea, injuries and malaria (2). Most of these... diseases and conditions are at least partially caused by the environment. It was estimated in 2012 that 26% of childhood deaths and 25% of the total disease burden in children under five could be prevented through the reduction of environmental risks such as air pollution, unsafe water, sanitation and inadequate hygiene or chemicals.
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The WHO document "Integrating the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases in HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, and sexual and reproductive health ...programmes: implementation guidance" provides a framework for integrating noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) into existing health programs for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis (TB), and sexual and reproductive health (SRH). It emphasizes the importance of a people-centered approach to enhance healthcare accessibility and efficiency, especially in low-resource settings. The document outlines strategies for strengthening policy, financing, capacity building, and health system infrastructure. It offers actionable steps, tools, and case studies to support countries in reducing the burden of NCDs through integrated, holistic care within primary health services.
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Universal health coverage ensures everyone has access to the health services they need without suffering financial hardship as a result. In December 2012, a UN resolution was passed encouraging governments to move towards providing universal access to affordable ...edbox">and quality health care services. As countries move towards it, common challenges are emerging -- challenges to which research can help provide answers.
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n Autumn 2013, HHI Executive Director, Vincenzo Bollettino, traveled to the Philippines to participate in an assessment of civil-military engagement in the humanitarian response to Typhoon Haiyan. The report was sponsored by the Center for Excellenc...e in Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance.
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The message contained in this publication is clear: countries need a
public health system that can respond to the deliberate release of
chemical and biological agents. Regrettable though this message may
be, the use of poison gas in the war betwe...en Iraq and the Islamic
Republic of Iran in the 1980s, the recent anthrax incidents in the United
States, and the attack with sarin nerve agent, six years earlier, on the
Tokyo underground, illustrate why it is necessary to prepare.
Russian and Japanese version available:
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