This is the fourth in a series of technical briefings, produced by the Association of Public Health Observatories (APHO), designed to support public health practitioners and analysts and to promote the use of public health intelligence in decision making. APHO Technical Briefings looks at key issues to consider when setting targets in a multi-agency environment, including the choice of appropriate methodologies, indicators and statistics, and consideration of the wider political and ethical context.
Useful Resources
Target setting in a multi-agency environment
Association of Public Health Observatories Technical Briefing 4, 2008
The Good Indicators Guide: Understanding how to use and choose indicators
Association of Public Health Observatories: 2008
This guide is intended to be a short, practical resource for anyone in any health system who is responsible for using indicators to monitor and improve performance, systems or outcomes. After reading this guide, you should be able to assess the validity of the indicators you are working with, allowing you to exert more control over the way your organisation is properly judged, regulated and run. Underlining all this is the reality that anyone working in a health system is working in a complex and political environment. This guide aims to balance what is desirable, in terms of using indicators in the most correct and most rigorous way, with what is practical and achievable in such settings.
Freeing up healthcare: A guide to removing user fees
Mc Pake B, Schmidt A and Araujo E: Save the Children Fund, 2008
This guide argues that it is both necessary and feasible to remove user fees in order to help poorer people access basic healthcare. It also looks in detail at the case of Uganda, which removed user fees (discontinuing the policy of cost-sharing) in 2001. Using data from a range of countries and worked examples, it demonstrates how to estimate the effect of removing fees on utilisation and the resulting resource requirements. It describes five steps to follow to successfully remove user fees and maximise utilisation of health services: Analyse your starting position, estimate how removing fees will affect service utilisation, estimate additional requirements for human resources and drugs, mobilise additional funding, communicate the policy change and carefully manage the communication process.
Kenyan professionals launch e-based resource centre
Affiliated Network for Social Accountability: 5 November 2008
Locally based Kenyan professionals and those in the Diaspora will now have the opportunity to exchange ideas and share knowledge following the launch of a Kenyan internet-based resource centre, the Kenya Knowledge Network (KNET). KNET will be an e-forum for debating major policy issues, where qualified subject matter specialists in the key areas of the Kenyan economy and its development management challenges can meet. The aim is to enable KNET to harness knowledge for development by establishing a community of practice, consisting of policy and research centres, professionals, policy makers and practitioners, and academics, who will participate in the formulation and management of development policies and programmes in Kenya. The website is not accessible to users just yet.
Free reporting and writing toolkit for development professionals
If you or your colleagues are facing difficulty in your project monitoring and evaluation reports, the Reporting Skills and Professional Writing Handbook (2nd Edition) is a self-study programme based on the best of ten years' experience running hundreds of training courses. There's a free download of the first module and you need to sign up to receive the remaining modules, free. It is designed to save time and help your team turn out more effective progress and evaluation reports. The programme is also available on CDROM for convenient desktop study, and, for larger organisations, the Trainer Edition is supported by a complete Training Pack.
Free web portal for African civil society organisations
GuideStar International (GSI): September 2008
GuideStar International (GSI) seeks to illuminate the work of civil society organisations (CSOs) around the world. It is based in the UK. Their new website, in co-operation with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), was started as a joint venture to develop a free web portal for African civil society, showcasing NGOs, charities, non-profit organisations and community-based organisations, ranging from the smallest to the largest. Utilising a shared internet platform, organisations will be able to display their vision and mission, objectives, activities, needs and finances to donors, researchers, policy makers and the general public.
New website on health equity and disabilities
To coincide with the high-level meeting last month in New York on the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs), the International Disability and Development Consortium (IDDC) and the Millennium Campaign have launched a new web site on disabilities and the MDGs. The site aims to raise awareness among the general public, NGOs, donors and governments about the need for the MDGs and poverty reduction programmes to address disabilities. One in five of the world's poorest people are disabled, yet they are rarely considered in MDG health plans and programmes. With the recent report from the Commission on the Social Determinants of Health, this is a timely moment for the health community to consider disability as a barrier to accessing health services. The website is a work in progress and the IDDC wants to link it to other sites, sources and organisations.
Zero Issue 2008: The World Food Crisis and the Right to Food
Bread for the World, ICCO and FIAN: October 2008
The Right to Food and Nutrition Watch provides a systematic compilation of best practices for the realisation of the right to food and also documents where violations have been committed. The Zero Issue deals with the topic ‘The World Food Crisis and the Human Right to Food’ and gathers articles and country monitoring reports from different experts and regions (the Americas, Asia, Africa and India). The publication also discusses the most recent global trends affecting the right to food, such as the increased expansion of agrofuels, and sheds new light on practices that continue to impede the realisation of the right to food, such as mining and the mismanagement of social cash transfers. UN experts on human rights and the right to food also give their input on recent UN documents and sessions. The hard copy of the Right to Food and Nutrition Watch is accompanied by a CD-ROM that includes supporting documents and full reports of all content.
2008 World Population Data Sheet: Global demographic divide widens
Population Reference Bureau, 2008
The demographic divide - the inequality in the population and health profiles of rich and poor countries - is widening. Two sharply different patterns of population growth are evident: little growth (or even decline) in most wealthy countries and continued rapid population growth in the world's poorest countries. The Population Reference Bureau has released its 2008 World Population Data Sheet, which provides up-to-date demographic, health and environment data for all countries and major world regions. New on the Data Sheet this year is data on maternal mortality and the percentage of population who are undernourished.
Free donor management toolkit
NPower Seattle, November 2006
This toolkit by NPower Seattle is for any non-profit employee or manager given the task of managing donors. Non-profit organisations regularly face the challenge of accomplishing a mission with limited resources and high accountability for expenditures regularly considered overhead expenses. Donation and grant-dependent funding often means that ‘success’ becomes the ability to tap into and grow these donor bases as efficiently and effectively as possible, but this is hard if you have limited in-house technology expertise and are tasked with maintaining and managing unusual and detailed data to support your services or have data that is stored in multiple locations that don’t talk with one another. The donor management software in this kit will help you to manage relationships with active and prospective donors by tracking contact information, keeping records of correspondence and donations, managing grant deadlines and producing detailed reports.