Funding for research into reproductive health problems in developing nations is languishing despite the severe and widespread impacts of these issues, a report has found. From SciDevNet:
Research and development (R&D) spending on reproductive health issues in these countries received just US$88 million in 2013, according to the report by Policy Cures, an Australian non-profit organisation that provides analysis and decision-making tools around neglected diseases.
In contrast, neglected diseases such as malaria and tuberculosis received roughly US$3.2 billion in 2013.
At a launch event last week (4 February), health advocates lamented the findings, noting that hundreds of women in developing nations die each day from childbirth complications and millions more suffer from sexually transmitted infections such as chlamydia.
Given the figures, some advocates suggested they need to rethink how they put their case to funding institutions.
“The takeaway message is that I think there’s a clear disconnect between the need and the response,” Mary Moran, executive director of Policy Cures, said at the event.
Policy Cures surveyed funding organisations — ranging from government agencies to the pharmaceutical industry to NGOs — on whether they gave R&D money for reproductive health issues that are of specific concern in developing countries and for which there is no viable market.
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Global Health and Development Beat
Options are running out in the race to eliminate malaria before the parasite responsible for the deadly disease completely outsmarts man’s last line of resistance – artemisinin, reports VOA.
Despite a sharp drop in malaria-related deaths over the past decade, a veteran doctor in the heart of the world’s malaria belt says now is the time to wage a large-scale battle with the mosquito-borne disease.”
Devex has a review of USAID Administrator Raj Shah’s accomplishments and his legacy as he prepares to leave.
International donors wishing to help Guinea fight Ebola should use their money to strengthen the West African country’s health system and help it tackle future epidemics instead of building more Ebola treatment centers, a government official said.
Red Cross teams in Ebola-hit Guinea have been attacked on average 10 times a month over the past year, the charity said on Thursday, warning that the violence was hampering efforts to contain the disease.
Children as young as eight are working 15-hour days making bricks that have been used in major international development projects in Nepal, including a WFP project funded with $3.2 million of UK aid money.
The Scripps Translational Science Institute received a grant from the USAID to create a program that will use health sensors to improve the health outcomes of Ebola patients.
Los Angeles County officials cut back on contracts to provide medical care to AIDS and HIV patients, citing increased numbers of people now insured under the federal government’s overhaul of healthcare.
Rheonix, Inc. received a $15 million grant from the National Institutes of Health to complete the development of a fully automated self-confirming assay capable of simultaneously detecting HIV/AIDS antibodies and viral RNA from the AIDS virus in a single specimen, according to the company.
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Spotlight on PSI
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Buzzing in the Blogs
Some ideas from ODI on how to improve services through adaptation. An excerpt from Devex:
Be adaptive and entrepreneurial: Because many development problems are complex and uncertain, allowing for cycles of doing, failing, adapting and (eventually) getting better results is key.
In a short film that accompanies the report, we document how three entrepreneurial activists, with assistance from international nongovernmental organization The Asia Foundation, were able to support significant reform, resulting in a 1,400 percent increase in residential land titling, and helping the poorest who had previously risked losing their properties. This was achieved through an entrepreneurial approach — one which tried multiple options, eventually ending support to ideas that had less promise and focusing on those that got traction.
Take action that is locally led: Change is ultimately best led by those who are close to the problem and who have the greatest stake in its solutions, whether this is central or local government officials, civil society or private sector groups, or communities themselves. While ownership and participation are often namechecked in development, this has rarely resulted in change that is genuinely driven by individuals and groups with the power to influence the problem and find solutions.
In Malawi, we highlight an example from Plan’s community scorecard program, which built capacity for local problem-solving and greater support for collective action. It facilitated groups to come together and find solutions for problems, such as teacher housing initiatives, which are problem driven, adaptive and locally led; and financial and other support that is fit for purpose.
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Capital Events
Friday
10:00 AM – Revising Japan’s ODA Charter: Aiding National Security? – Brookings
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By Mark Leon Goldberg and Tom Murphy
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