March, 2002. Women, Health and Development Program, Division of Health and Human Development (HDP), Pan-American Health Organization, PAHO/WHO Announces the launch of our new website devoted to Gender and Health issues. Join our listserv GENSALUD and have the latest Gender and Health news e-mailed to you. Download one of our Gender and Health Fact Sheets or Advocacy Kits. Browse through our Virtual Library on Gender and Health - SIMUS. Find a training course, seminar or workshop on gender and health. Visit our Education page for information about gender and women's studies programs throughout the Americas. Check out our Gender and Health Calendar to find out what's happening this month. Look for links to other organizations working on gender and women's health issues. Learn more about the Women, Health and Development Program!
Useful Resources
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.
Alma Mata is a new UK-based information gateway and network for professionals and students interested in careers, training, research and campaigns in international health. You can find us at www.almamata.net.
Results for Development has launched its new Centre for Health Market Innovations (CHMI), a new initiative that works to improve health markets in developing countries to deliver better results for the poor. CHMI is a publicly accessible global knowledge platform that collects, analyses and disseminates information about health market innovations and facilitates the creation of strategic links among key stakeholders. It provides access to interactive, comparable and filterable information on health market programmes. You can use CHMI for research, to allow you to promote your ideas, publications and programmes, and enable you to make better connections with people in the field. The website contains a programmes database and funder database. It also contains information about health market innovations, which are programmes and policies that harness market incentives and mitigate the negative effects of unregulated markets to provide better health and financial protection for the poor. You can join the conversation on the blog, as well as provide feedback on the site.
The Initiative to Strengthen Health Research Capacity in Africa (ISHReCA) is an African-led initiative aimed at building a strong foundation for health research in Africa. ISHReCA was born out of consultative meetings between African researchers and research funders and aims to serve as a forum for African scientist to collate ideas about capacity building and to speak to funders collectively. It emphasises a comprehensive approach to capacity building that leads to sustained increase recruitment, training and retention of African scientists. This website serves three key purposes. First, it provides a forum for African health researchers to discuss capacity building needs and approaches. These discussions will be used to negotiate with funders' innovative initiatives for capacity building and to give feedback to funders on current capacity building initiatives. Second, it is a resource tool for providing up-to-date information on capacity building to African health researchers. Third, it is a tool for collecting information for an African health researchers’ database, which will hopefully be used to facilitate the development of collaboration networks.
The new Health-E website has print and broadcast stories that contextualise and analyse public health issues, especially HIV/AIDS in South Africa. The website provides easy access to a variety of resources that have relevance for other developing countries. Some of the new features on the website include: Transcripts of all audio reports; Resources page offering reports, speeches and book reviews; News briefs; Webcasts and archives of major events; Picture gallery; Direct email access to authors of Health-e stories; Instant download of audio from website.
The new HIFA2015 website was launched on the 1st July 2008 and addresses the knowledge gap in health provision in developing countries. The aim is to develop this site substantially over the coming months - especially the
HIFA2015 Knowledge Base section.
Scidev.net have just launched a range of new in-depth materials on the latest scientific and technological advances to combat HIV/AIDS in developing countries. Articles include perspectives from the South, with an overview of HIV research in Brazil and microbicides research in South Africa forming two of the new opinion pieces.
The household economy approach (HEA) is a method for assessing the vulnerability of rural populations to economic shocks and changes, based on their livelihood patterns and market information. It is now widely used as a method of famine early warning by many governments and humanitarian agencies, and also has important applications for managing the impacts of climate change on poverty and food security in developing countries.
In the Zones Rouges of southern Madagascar, economic opportunities are scarce, as is any presence of the state: the police are particularly absent from most villages. But there are lots of zebu - the country’s distinctive breed of humpbacked cattle. Millions of them. Each worth several hundred US dollars. This walking wealth makes for easy prey for rustlers known as dahalo, who rob and kill with virtual impunity. With no one to turn to for protection, civilians are forming their own vigilante units, called zama. Armed only with crude weapons and denied training or support from the government, they are no match for the dahalo, but this does little to dent their zeal. IRIN’s latest film, The Zebu and the Zama - Bounty and Bloodshed in Southern Madagascar, explores a vicious cycle of violence in which the dahalo murder those who get in the way and the zama mete out deadly “justice” on those they suspect of banditry.