In September 2000, world leaders gathered at the United Nations for the Millennium Assembly promised to halve extreme hunger and poverty, halt the spread of HIV/AIDS and provide universal primary education, all by 2015. The series of targets, known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), also include promoting gender equality, reducing child and maternal mortality, ensuring environmental sustainability and building a global partnership for development. Salil Shetty spoke to IPS about the current status of the MDGs.
Poverty and health
Nine years, eight goals, no time to waste
Sandrasagra MJ: Inter Press Service News Agency, 12 June 2006
Targeting the very poor
Eldis Health Systems Resource Guide
A number of studies have looked at who benefits from public sector funding of health services. Different conclusions are drawn about the best way to reach the very poor, depending on the health system in question, the broader social, economic and political context, and the conceptual and ideological approaches underpinning the studies. A key area of debate concerns the respective benefits of non-targeted strategies, such as provision of universal free health care services, versus specific, targeted strategies for reaching the very poor.
The G8's response to Africa: Is it making a difference?
Intellectual Program Series
A year after the G8 agreements were reached, the question remains: Has anything changed? What has been done thus far? What action has been taken to implement change and how? What do these plans hold for Africa? Will they alleviate the developmental pressures that the African governments and the African people face? Or will they simply diversify the already-apparent symptoms of poverty? This conference proposed to investigate the complex issues surrounding poverty, debt relief, healthcare, and other related matters in Africa in a cross-disciplinary setting.
WHO paves way for medicines for the poor
Capdevila G: Inter Press Service News Agency, 29 May 2006
The World Health Assembly concluded its annual session at the end of May with the adoption of a resolution that could change the concept of drug research and development, and open the door to a system that gives the world's poor greater access to medicines. The resolution approved by the Assembly, the supreme decision-making body of the World Health Organisation (WHO), urges the 192 member states to make the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals a strategic sector, thus committing themselves to making the research and development of medicines consistent with public interest needs a priority.
East Africa: Food for thought
World Vision
As the Horn of Africa risks facing a famine not seen since the mid-1980s, World Vision Africa Senior Advisor Nigel Marsh says all hope is not lost. The people of Somalia, Kenya, Ethiopia, Tanzania and Burundi are at the mercy of three giants that are difficult to wish away: namely the weather, poverty, and HIV/AIDS.
Every day 10 children die in SA
IOL, 29 May 2006: Hall K , Leatt A
The death of a child is always tragic, and in South Africa it is not an unusual occurrence. Every hour, 10 children under five years of age die. Almost one in 10 children will not survive to see their fifth birthday. The majority of these deaths are entirely avoidable.
Treating diseases of poverty: Creating markets for advance drug purchasing
id21 Health, May 2006: Towse A, Kettler H
While new drugs and vaccines are needed to treat diseases of poverty, not enough is being invested in developing these products because of the lack of a demand or market for them. Advance price or purchase commitments potentially offer a solution, yet a number of structure and design issues first need to be resolved.
Targeting services towards the poor: A review of targeting mechanisms and their effectiveness
Eldis Health Systems/ Health Systems Resource Guide: Hanson K, Worrall E, Wiseman V
This chapter analyses the alternative approaches to targeting the poor that have been used in healthcare delivery and draws together evidence from a range of countries about their effectiveness. The authors emphasise the importance of programme design and implementation issues and argue that successful programmes will need to identify these issues and devote adequate resources to overcoming them. The authors propose a conceptual framework for understanding the key elements of targeting policies.
The scandal of poor peoples diseases
Pambazuka News
People with AIDS all over the world are fortunate to have fellow sufferers in America and Europe, says this New York Times article. "In poor countries as well, it helps that AIDS strikes all social classes. Brazil would never have become the first poor country to guarantee free AIDS treatment to all who need it without the activism of its many homosexual organizations. For every AIDS victim, though, there are many more suffering from diseases that lack this kind of constituency. Today, contracting a serious disease that affects only poor people is the worst luck of all.
Defining and measuring gender: A social determinant of health whose time has come
Phillips SP: International Journal for Equity in Health 2005, 4:11
This paper contributes to a nascent scholarly discussion of sex and gender as determinants of health. Health is a composite of biological makeup and socioeconomic circumstances. Differences in health and illness patterns of men and women are attributable both to sex, or biology, and to gender, that is, social factors such as powerlessness, access to resources, and constrained roles. Using examples such as the greater life expectancy of women in most of the world, despite their relative social disadvantage, and the disproportionate risk of myocardial infarction amongst men, but death from MI amongst women, the independent and combined associations of sex and gender on health are explored. A model for incorporating gender into epidemiologic analyses is proposed.