UNHCR, the UN Refuge Agency, and NGO partners are launching an appeal for US$2.7 billion to address the live-saving humanitarian needs of South Sudanese refugees in 2019 and 2020.
Five years on sin...ce the onset of a brutal civil war, over 2.2 million South Sudanese refugees have sought safety in six neighboring countries Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and Central African Republic (CAR). Another 1.9 million remain internally displaced inside South Sudan
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Research Paper.
As the fighting in Syria winds down, international humanitarian organisations (IHOs) operating from Damascus are hopeful that the Syrian government’s interference in their work wi...ll decrease. However, the government is attempting to formalise its influence over humanitarian operations.
Throughout the Syrian conflict, the government has imposed multiple administrative processes on humanitarian organisations to limit their ability to operate independently. This includes restricting the operational environment; undermining organisational independence; imposing local partners; influencing procurement procedures; and preventing direct monitoring and evaluation.
While some level of coordination with the government might be a pragmatic necessity to ensure the safety of operations in regime-controlled areas, this cooperation should not enable the government to use aid for military or political purposes. Consequently, international humanitarian organisations have an ethical dilemma in how they provide aid in these areas without undermining their principles of humanity, independence, impartiality and neutrality.
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12 May 2021. This third survey in the series shows that the COVID-19 pandemic continues to impact societies, not only in terms of health, but also social and economic conditions and day-to-day life
Neurological, Psychiatric, and Developmental Disorders: Meeting the Challenge in the Developing World
Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Nervous System Disorders in Developing Countries.
Wash...ington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2001.
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Measuring progress towards universal health coverage.
This sixth edition of Health at a Glance Asia/Pacific presents a set of key indicators of health status, the determinants of health, health care resources and utilisation, health care expenditur...e and financing and quality of care across 27 Asia-Pacific countries and territories. It also provides a series of dashboards to compare performance across countries and territories, and a thematic analysis on the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on Asia/Pacific health systems.
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This casebook collects 64 case studies, each of which raises an important and difficult ethical issue connected with planning, reviewing, or conducting health-related research. The book’s purpose is to contribute to thoughtful analysis of these is...sues by researchers and members of research ethics committees (RECs, known in some places as ethical review committees or institutional review boards), particularly those involved with studies that are conducted or sponsored internationally.
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Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2021, 18(24), 13339; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182413339
The climate crisis threatens to exacerbate numerous climate-sensitive health risks, including heatwave mortality, malnutrition from reduced crop yield...s, water- and vector-borne infectious diseases, and respiratory illness from smog, ozone, allergenic pollen, and wildfires. Recent reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stress the urgent need for action to mitigate climate change, underscoring the need for more scientific assessment of the benefits of climate action for health and wellbeing.
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Many groups in sub-Saharan Africa have historically linked persons with disabilities with witchcraft as a component of a wider link between accusations of witchcraft and socially marginalized populations. It is commonly assumed that traditional prejudices towards persons with disabilities are recedi...ng in light of urbanization, education, mass media and efforts to confront such prejudice and stigma by governments,
disability advocates and civil society. Ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) by many African countries is considered an additional impetus for change.
Working Paper Series: No. 30
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The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic exacerbated pre-existing inequalities in the treatment and care of noncommunicable diseases (NCDs). This report examines ...ht medbox">the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on access to NCD medicines, and the policies and strategies implemented by countries and health systems to anticipate and mitigate stresses across NCD medicine supply chains. The full range of upstream and downstream impacts are investigated, including: manufacturing; procurement, importation and last mile delivery; patient-level effects through affordability and availability; and the effects on NCD medicine availability by category of disease. The report culminates in recommended actions and interventions for key stakeholders in the NCD pharmaceutical supply chain, including governments, regulatory authorities, manufacturers and the private sector; as well as directions for future research for improving access and supply chain access resilience.
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The "Stories from the field" document by the WHO Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean s...hares effective strategies from the Eastern Mediterranean Region for addressing noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) and mental health challenges, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. It highlights regional success stories in mitigating NCDs and mental health conditions through innovative, country-specific interventions. The report emphasizes multisectoral collaboration, community engagement, and resilience in public health responses. It aims to inspire further action and knowledge-sharing to enhance health outcomes in challenging settings across the region.
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Since there is no single objective diagnostic test for asthma this study suggests an approach of collecting and assembling pieces of clinical information to create a diagnostic picture, like making a jigsaw puzzle. These pieces should include demonstration of symptom and airway variability and/or br...onchodilator responsiveness over time, to support a clinical diagnosis.
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This year’s report should dispel any lingering doubts that the world is moving backwards in its efforts to end hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition in all its forms. We are now only eight years away from 2030, but ...hlight medbox">the distance to reach many of the SDG 2 targets is growing wider each year. There are indeed efforts to make progress towards SDG 2, yet they are proving insufficient in the face of a more challenging and uncertain context. The intensification of the major drivers behind recent food insecurity and malnutrition trends (i.e. conflict, climate extremes and economic shocks) combined with the high cost of nutritious foods and growing inequalities will continue to challenge food security and nutrition. This will be the case until agrifood systems are transformed, become more resilient and are delivering lower cost nutritious foods and affordable healthy diets for all, sustainably and inclusively.
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Recommended actions and international and national level
Today, more children than ever before are displaced within their own countries. Their harrowing stories of displacement are unfolding every day, and with increasing frequency. At the end of 2019, approximately 45.7 million people were internally dis...placed by conflict and violence (Fig. 1.1). Nearly half – 19 million – were estimated to be children. And millions more are displaced every year by natural disasters.
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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 collection 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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The United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, echoed the concerns of people and organisations around the world when he recently referred... to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on schooling as a
‘generational catastrophe’.
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