Children with disabilities are particularly vulnerable in humanitarian settings, yet they are often not able to access the services and protection they need. While multiple factors create these barriers, a major cause is how data about children with disabilities is collected and mapped. Data collect...ion processes often exclude or underrepresent the views of children with disabilities and thier caretakers. When the experiences of children with disabilities and their caretakers are not defined and collected, they become excluded from mainstreamed protective services, which are meant to serve all children. Children with disabilities also do not get the specialised interventions they need.
This guidance note explores how to use qualitative methods to create more robust assessment processes to ensure more effective programming and services for children with disabilities. This note provides promising practices for engaging with children with disabilities and includes sample tools that can be tailored to fit the needs of a particular assessment process. The note also explores the importance of thoughtful cross-sectoral responses so that children with disabilities, and their families, are carefully considered in areas like water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), education, health, and nutrition, and therefore receive the holistic support they need and deserve.
This note is intended for a broad audience of relevant child protection actors, including practitioners, coordination groups, researchers, and donors. The information is not limited to one type of humanitarian setting, geographic region, or culture. As a result, the practices and guidance should be adapted to each specific context, ideally in partnership with well-informed local actors, such as representatives from local organisations for persons with disabilities.
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BACKGROUND: Growing political attention to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) offers a rare opportunity for achieving meaningful action. Many governments have developed national AMR action plans, but most have not yet implemented policy interventions to reduce antimicrobial overuse. A systematic evidenc...e map can support governments in making evidence-informed decisions about implementing programs to reduce AMR, by identifying, describing, and assessing the full range of evaluated government policy options to reduce antimicrobial use in humans.
METHODS AND FINDINGS: Seven databases were searched from inception to January 28, 2019, (MEDLINE, CINAHL, EMBASE, PAIS Index, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Web of Science, and PubMed). We identified studies that (1) clearly described a government policy intervention aimed at reducing human antimicrobial use, and (2) applied a quantitative design to measure the impact. We found 69 unique evaluations of government policy interventions carried out across 4 of the 6 WHO regions. These evaluations included randomized controlled trials (n = 4), non-randomized controlled trials (n = 3), controlled before-and-after designs (n = 7), interrupted time series designs (n = 25), uncontrolled before-and-after designs (n = 18), descriptive designs (n = 10), and cohort designs (n = 2). From these we identified 17 unique policy options for governments to reduce the human use of antimicrobials. Many studies evaluated public awareness campaigns (n = 17) and antimicrobial guidelines (n = 13); however, others offered different policy options such as professional regulation, restricted reimbursement, pay for performance, and prescription requirements. Identifying these policies can inform the development of future policies and evaluations in different contexts and health systems. Limitations of our study include the possible omission of unpublished initiatives, and that policies not evaluated with respect to antimicrobial use have not been captured in this review.
CONCLUSIONS: To our knowledge this is the first study to provide policy makers with synthesized evidence on specific government policy interventions addressing AMR. In the future, governments should ensure that AMR policy interventions are evaluated using rigorous study designs and that study results are published.
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African countries, like many regions of the world, are affected by the legacy of atrocity crimes. Genocide, the transatlantic slave trade and slavery, colonialism and post-independence violence committed during dictatorships, not to mention civil war and violent extremism, have severely violated hum...an rights and left devastating marks on societies across the continent. The way in which societies deal with violent pasts has profound implications for the present and the future, as well as their chances of building sustainable peace.
Strengthening education about atrocity crimes, including genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes, is an essential part of addressing violent pasts and preventing future atrocity crimes. Echoing a series of United Nations resolutions on the importance of educational measures for genocide prevention,1 in 2013, the Secretary-General’s annual report Responsibility to protect: State responsibility and prevention included the recommendation: “Education curriculums should include instruction on past violations and on the causes, dynamics and consequences of atrocity crimes” as an important means to promote societal resilience to atrocity crimes.
This recognition is in line with the Education 2030 Agenda and, more specifically, target 4.7 of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 4 on Education. This target calls on countries to promote education that fosters sustainable development, human rights, gender equality, a culture of peace, global citizenship and an appreciation of cultural diversity.
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In 2015, the United Nations set important targets to reduce premature
cardiovascular disease (CVD) deaths by 33% by 2030. Africa disproportionately
bears the brunt of CVD burden and has one of the highest risks of dying
from non-communicable diseases (NCDs) worldwide. There is currently
an epide...miological transition on the continent, where NCDs is projected
to outpace communicable diseases within the current decade. Unchecked
increases in CVD risk factors have contributed to the growing burden of three
major CVDs—hypertension, cardiomyopathies, and atherosclerotic diseasesleading to devastating rates of stroke and heart failure. The highest age
standardized disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) due to hypertensive heart
disease (HHD) were recorded in Africa. The contributory causes of heart failure
are changing—whilst HHD and cardiomyopathies still dominate, ischemic
heart disease is rapidly becoming a significant contributor, whilst rheumatic
heart disease (RHD) has shown a gradual decline. In a continent where health
systems are traditionally geared toward addressing communicable diseases,
several gaps exist to adequately meet the growing demand imposed by CVDs.
Among these, high-quality research to inform interventions, underfunded
health systems with high out-of-pocket costs, limited accessibility and
affordability of essential medicines, CVD preventive services, and skill
shortages. Overall, the African continent progress toward a third reduction
in premature mortality come 2030 is lagging behind. More can be done in
the arena of effective policy implementation for risk factor reduction and
CVD prevention, increasing health financing and focusing on strengthening
primary health care services for prevention and treatment of CVDs, whilst
ensuring availability and affordability of quality medicines. Further, investing
in systematic country data collection and research outputs will improve the accuracy of the burden of disease data and inform policy adoption on
interventions. This review summarizes the current CVD burden, important
gaps in cardiovascular medicine in Africa, and further highlights priority
areas where efforts could be intensified in the next decade with potential
to improve the current rate of progress toward achieving a 33% reduction
in CVD mortality.
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Cholera is an acute gastrointestinal infection caused by the bacterium Vibrio Cholerae serogroup O1 or O139, and is often linked to unsafe drinking water, lack of proper sanitation and personal hygiene. It adversely affects mostly the poor and vulnerable populations in countries, which are already d...eprived of proper health facilities and conducive environmental conditions. The disease spreads through oro-fecal transmission by the ingestion of contaminated food or water or by person-to-person contact. It has a short incubation period of 2 hours to 5 days and the number of affected cases can rapidly increase across large regions. Cholera is a significant threat to global public health leading to an estimated 3-5 million cases per year worldwide, with an annual toll of 100,000 deaths. The disease was first reported in 1817 from the Ganges Delta of India and since then the ongoing 7th pandemic has emerged from Indonesia, reached Africa in 1970 and Somalia happens to be one of the early affected countries. Over the past few decades,
Somalia has witnessed the occurrence of repeated AWD/Cholera disease outbreaks that have caused high morbidity and mortality across the country.
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The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) established its Financial Mechanism to facilitate the provision and transfer of resources from developed to developing countries. The Global Environment Facility became the first operating entity of the Financial Mechanism after the ...Conference of the Parties (COP) to the UNFCCC, and the GEF Council agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 1996. This agreement placed the GEF under the guidance of the COP, as Article 11 of the Convention states that the Financial Mechanism “shall function under the guidance of and be accountable to the Conference of the Parties, which shall decide on its policies, program priorities and eligibility criteria related to this Convention.”
The yearly COPs have provided an opportunity for Parties to update and renew their guidance to the GEF. To date, there have been 145 UNFCCC COP decisions and 526 paragraphs that offer guidance to the GEF (see Table 1). In addition, the Conferences of the Parties serving as the meeting of the Parties to the Paris Agreement (CMA) have issued 40 decisions and 115 paragraphs as guidance to the GEF (see Table 2). Key areas of Convention guidance have included: the GEF’s role as an operating entity of the Financial Mechanism, including the Paris Agreement; the GEF’s institutional and procedural reform; transparency and access to GEF funds; country engagement and empowerment; reporting on greenhouse gas (GHG) inventories; support for technology transfer; and ongoing programming in mitigation and adaptation.
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This guide provides an overview of the major elements that must be considered before, during and after the implementation of antigen-detecting rapid diagnostic tests (Ag-RDTs) for SARS-CoV-2. This guide is complementary to policy guidance issued by the World Health Organization (WHO). The guide may ...appeal to a range of audiences including Ministries of Health, donors, public and private organizations/agencies acting as implementing partners and community based and civil society organizations with experience working on health, especially organizations familiar with similar testing campaigns for other disease programmes like HIV and malaria
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Interim Guidance 7 March 2020
This document provides technical guidance for government authorities, health workers, and other key stakeholders to guide response to community spread. It will be updated as new information or technical guidance become available. For countries that are already preparin...g or responding, this document can also serve as a checklist to identify any remaining gaps.
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The National Institute of statistics of Rwanda (NISR) in collaboration with the worldwide Demographic and Health Surveys Program implemented the 2014-15 Rwanda Demographic and Health Survey (RDHS) to collect data for monitoring progress on health programs and policies in Rwanda. This publication ill...ustrates the profile of Kigali City
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