This article describes the 'Toolbox for the 21st Century Village' action research project and outline the critical research contexts that underpin its development as an online informatics and social engagement tool aimed at facilitating understanding, sharing and planning of integrated sustainability by individual communities. The article questions the assumption that rural livelihoods are necessarily ‘green’, arguing that rural behaviours are disproportionately dependent on natural resources and as a consequence are ‘less sustainable’, despite relative autonomy and community potential to make significant gains. The article also explores how the term ‘sustainability’ serves to divide and detract as a polemic and absolute term, whereas the term ‘self-sufficiency’ may be more appropriate to meaningful sustainable development.
Useful Resources
CapacityPlus’s iHRIS software is open sourcesoftware that is designed to help organisations and governments to cost interventions to retain rural health workers. It is based on the World Health Organization’s global policy recommendations for rural retention. Using this software, health workforce leaders will be able to determine the costs of different retention interventions across cadres at the national, regional, district, or facility level. The software guides users through the costing process step by step. Based on data entered, it will determine the total costs and generate reports for each intervention. Stakeholders can use the results to determine the economic feasibility of different scenarios. This is the first iHRIS product that will be coded in-country and is currently being coded in Uganda. Capacity Plus aims to not only meet the specific goal of retaining rural health workers, but also to build in-country information technology (IT) capacity.
This new blog is aimed at helping development practitioners to better understand and address the governance and corruption (GAC) impediments to development effectiveness, including how GAC may be dealt with by policy reforms and how effective community participation may be increased. It provides a forum for World Bank Group staff engaged in GAC mainstreaming and the wider development community for experience sharing, reflection and discussion regarding the implications of GAC mainstreaming for development work. The blog mandates a methodology for GAC work that works ‘with the grain’, in a way that takes institutions and politics into account calls for different approaches to engagement – and different ways of identifying which approaches make sense across different country contexts. A spectrum of approaches is discussed, ranging from incremental approaches, which adapt their design to the existing context, to transformational approaches, which seek to expand and accelerate change. Relevant stakeholders and policy makers are invited to discuss their experiences of the various approaches and share tools for better shaping and measuring governance and accountability.
The Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage (JLN) is a new platform that aims to connect health financing practitioners from across the globe to share experiences and solve problems together. The JLN is a network of countries and partners implementing reforms to expand health coverage. Its activities include practitioner-to-practitioner based learning activities on various technical topics, dissemination of technical resources and documentation of country reform experiences. The JLN gathers and consolidates technical materials related to health financing reforms from many sources, including member countries and international technical and academic partners. It also offers financial assistance to support practitioner-to-practitioner learning, targeted technical assistance, and other priority areas.
Research Matters has launched a web resource for knowledge brokers and intermediaries, which includes those who are interested in knowledge translation and how research evidence can influence decision making. The forum is a shared space for knowledge brokers and intermediaries, people involved in knowledge translation and peers interested in the subject. It is designed as a space where they can access and share resources on the strategic, practical and technical aspects of knowledge brokering and intermediary work, learn from a global community of peers working in the field and share experiences with others. In addition to providing a space for discussions, requesting peer advice and posting knowledge translation-related blogs, the forum will be hosting regular themed discussions, including how evidence is used in the development of policy and practice and what this means for knowledge brokers and intermediaries, how to conduct knowledge brokering and intermediation on issues where opinion divides sharply, and how to measure the effectiveness of knowledge brokering and intermediation.
The Equity-Oriented Toolkit is currently in the process of being updated and expanded. It is based on a needs-based model of health technology assessment (HTA). It provides tools that explicitly consider health equity at each of the four steps of HTA: burden of illness, community effectiveness, economic evaluation, knowledge translation and implementation. It also incorporates concepts of health impact assessment within the HTA process. The World Health Organization is seeking suggestions on validated and widely disseminated HTA tools that explicitly consider health equity and that are relevant to the toolkit. These tools may be specific analytical methods such as the Disability-Adjusted Life Years, checklists such as the Health Impact Screening Checklist, software programmes such as the Harvard Policy Maker, databases such as The Cochrane Library. Visit the website to make your suggestions.
In 1970, the United Nations General Assembly passed Resolution 2626 (1), which pledged for the first time that developed nations would provide 0.7% of their wealth in foreign aid. Forty years later this pledge has yet to be realised and currently looks unlikely to be met. On the 40th anniversary of the Resolution, Action for Global Health has launched an ‘Action Tracker’, an online tool that tracks the contributions that European Union (EU) member states make to improve health in developing countries. It determines whether or not these states are actually providing 0.7% of their wealth for development aid, and calculates how much of this aid is devoted to health. So far the Action Tracker has data on about half the countries in the EU, but will develop over time to include all 27 EU member states. It will also assess to what extent they are implementing their commitments to make this aid more effective and ensuring their other policies support health in developing countries.
The Global Health Diplomacy Network (GHD.Net) brings together researchers and practitioners with the common goal of improving capacity for health diplomacy (GHD). GHD.Net defines ‘global health diplomacy’ as the policy-shaping processes through which States, intergovernmental organisations and non-State actors negotiate responses to health challenges or utilise health concepts or mechanisms in policy-shaping and negotiation strategies to achieve other political, economic or social objectives. GHD.Net’s mission is to increase knowledge about GHD, improve training and education for those who engage in GHD, and innovate in the provision of advice into GHD processes. Through its website, publications, and other activities, it aims to put in the public domain up-to-date information on research and training in this field. It will also track and report on current diplomatic negotiations that have direct or indirect impact on health policy and health. It has four functions: to act as a clearinghouse for GHD-related information; to enhance connectivity among network participants; to develop content for research, training and education; and to build capacity, especially in partnership with interested institutions and individuals in low-income countries. GHD.Net will also identify the characteristics of health as a foreign policy and diplomatic issue and provide research, training, and policy-relevant inputs to contribute to improving the protection and promotion of health through foreign policy and diplomatic means. It offers training and regularly calls for submission of research papers.
The INDEPTH Network has conducted two INDEPTH Health Equity studies. Study Phase 1, which is leading to a monograph, demonstrated that large disparities exist in terms of health outcomes among different socio-economic subgroups among populations in INDEPTH sites that cover small geographically defined populations. These sites include two countries in southern Africa - Tanzania and South Africa. With this evidence, the Network decided to move to the next stage, Study Phase 2, to develop intervention studies or manipulate existing interventions to have a pro-poor focus in order to inform policy. The Network has also developed a tool for measuring socio-economic status, which is available on their website.
The Canadian Institute of Health Research Institute of Gender and Health (IGH) Cochrane Corner is a new online resource that highlights reviews pertinent to gender, sex, and health questions. It aims to introduce those working in gender, sex, and health to the methods of the Cochrane Collaboration and, reciprocally, to bring awareness of sex- and gender-based analyses to the Cochrane community. The Corner will provide a range of knowledge users with a gender- and sex-focused entrée into the collection of research evidence provided through the Cochrane Library. By creating a focused collection of systematic reviews relevant to gender, sex, and health, the IGH Cochrane Corner will be a valuable tool for knowledge translation in the field. The Corner also features an original series of columns, which highlight methodological, substantive, or newsworthy issues related to sex, gender, health, and systematic reviews. The columns reflect current knowledge and activities in the field.