This training manual, published by the Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance II (FANTA-2) Project, recognises that nutrition interventions are an important component of comprehensive care and support for people living with HIV. They help to manage symptoms, promote response to treatment and improving functioning and quality of life. The authors argue that equipping nurses, who in many settings play a critical role in HIV care, with nutrition and HIV knowledge and skills enables them to provide effective nutrition care and support. The manual is organised into three parts: Part I includes introductory sessions with basic information about HIV, Part II aims to build technical knowledge and Part III provides guidance on nutrition care for different clients living with HIV. This training manual is designed to be used for pre-service training, but it can also be used or adapted for in-service training – an advantage considering the fact that nursing school curricula in the East, Central and Southern Africa region often includes little or no information on the subject.
Useful Resources
2 CDs on African nutrition are available from Dr Britta Ogle, Dept of Rural Development Studies, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, P O Box 7005, 75007 Uppsala, Sweden. The costs are free but there is limited availability so
priority will be given to Africans. The CD Roms can be copied.
In support of the implementation of the Kenyan national guidelines on nutrition and HIV/AIDS, this training manual is designed for healthcare service providers working in comprehensive care centres. It aims to equip participants with the knowledge and skills necessary for managing the specific nutritional needs of people living with HIV/AIDS. The provision of methodology, suggested content, materials and further reading allow trainers to formulate a programme specific to their context. The manual includes a variety of tools such as a sample training programme, sample questionnaires, tips on evaluation, guidelines and a step-by-step process for the preparation of sessions, check lists, props and background information on the national guidelines.
Increasingly, countries in east, central, and southern Africa are integrating nutrition and food security interventions into HIV services. As the number, variety and reach of these programmes expand, identification and documentation of promising practices become valuable in order to help understand what works, to replicate successful approaches and to incorporate lessons into programmes. The Regional Centre for Quality of Health Care (RCQHC) in Uganda and the FANTA Project organised extensive in-country reviews by local teams of nutrition, food security and HIV programmes in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Nutrition, Food Security and HIV: A Compendium of Promising Practices compiles, analyses and describes the promising practices identified through the reviews.
WHO's non-communicable diseases and mental health cluster has launched a resource centre to "alert health leaders" about global increases in chronic conditions such as diabetes, HIV/AIDS, and mental and neurological disorders, and to provide solutions for managing the growing burden.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and WHO have recently jointly published Poverty and Health in the Development Assistance Committee - DAC Guidelines and Reference Series. This DAC Reference Document dedicated to health and poverty in developing countries expands on the DAC Guidelines on Poverty Reduction and provides a set of policy recommendations to a broad range of development agency staff working on policy and operations. It provides a framework for action within the health system, and beyond it, through policies in other sectors and through global initiatives.
On this website Okayafrica have picked some of the finest cinema originating from the continent from 2014. Some have courted controversy for their subject matter while others have been heralded as highly imaginative celebrations of Afrofuturist landscapes from the past to the present. The projects, from rising stars and celebrated auteurs alike, come from Mauritania, Ghana, South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya include documentaries, anthology films, full-length features and shorts. They address topics as varied as excessive use of police force in a South African mining community to vignettes delving into the lives of Kenya’s LGBTQI community. Each of these films (and filmmakers) are reported to push cinema boundaries in the stories they tell.
The Global Health Learning Centre offers an online course By the end of the course, the learner will understand how health systems components interact with each other, how gender plays a role in each health systems component, and how to address these gender issues in health systems strengthening activities in order to improve health and social outcomes. This course examines gender considerations for each of six health systems components described in the World Health Organization's health systems components and ways to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment in health systems strengthening interventions so that health systems better meet the health needs of women, men, girls, and boys. Each section of the course first discusses and illustrates gender issues that affect a particular health system component and then proposes solutions to address these issues and strengthen health systems. The course considers some of the gender norms that drive health behavior, health decision making, and the provision and utilization of health care. It highlights programmatic examples that illustrate aspects of gender equality and women's empowerment in health systems strengthening.
The One World Trust (OWT), with support from the International Development Research Centre, has created an interactive, online database of tools to help organisations conducting policy relevant research become more accountable. OWT believes policy-relevant research and innovation must continually take into account and balance the needs of a diverse set of stakeholders: from the intended research users, to their clients and donors, to the research community and the research participants. Responsiveness to all of these is crucial if they are to be legitimate and effective. In this, accountable processes are as important as high quality research products. OWT has built the online accountability database to support researchers, campaigners and research managers to think through the way they use evidence to influence policy in an accountable way. The database provides an inventory of over two hundred tools, standards and processes within a broad, overarching accountability framework. Each tool is supported by sources and further reading.
Information and knowledge have become critical determinants of development and the driving forces behind economic progress in today's competitive world. Access to credible information is a strategic prerequisite for the success of development projects and processes. It empowers decision-making and enables action across a wide range of development issues. This directory highlights the activities of organisations involved in development work in South Africa.