The Programme for Access to Health Research (HINARI) provides free or very low cost online access to the major journals in biomedical and related social sciences to local, not-for-profit institutions in developing countries. More than 150 publishers are offering more than 6,200 journals in HINARI and others will soon be joining the programme. HINARI was developed in the framework of the Health InterNetwork, introduced by the United Nations' Secretary General Kofi Annan at the UN Millennium Summit in 2000. Local, not-for-profit institutions in two groups of countries may register for access to the journals through HINARI. The country lists are based on GNI per capita (World Bank figures). Institutions in countries with GNI per capita below US$1,250 are eligible for free access. Institutions in countries with GNI per capita between $1,250-$3,500 pay a fee of $1,000 per year / institution. Eligible categories of institutions are: national universities, research institutes, professional schools (medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health, dentistry), teaching hospitals, government offices and national medical libraries. All staff members and students are entitled to access to the journals.
Useful Resources
The Nossal Institute, in collaboration with UNICEF and FutureLearn, has developed a free online course in health systems strengthening. This course aims to develop skills and confidence in policy makers, managers and clinicians working in health systems to analyse system problems and take decisive, evidence-based actions to strengthen their system. It covers health system structures, functions and components, and how they interact. How to use evidence, and analysis of inequity, to drive interventions to strengthen health systems. It also addresses strengthening health systems through action in areas such as health policy, financing, human resources, supply chain management, quality of care and private sector engagement and using complex systems thinking to address health system problems.
Around 15% of the world’s population, or 1 billion people, live with some form of disability, with numbers continuing to rise over the coming decades. People with disabilities are often overlooked in national and international development, and can face widespread barriers in accessing services, including health and rehabilitation services, even though simple initiatives are available to enable access. This three week course aims to raise awareness about the importance of health and well-being of people with disabilities in the context of the global development agenda: Leaving no one behind.
If you or your colleagues are facing difficulty in your project monitoring and evaluation reports, the Reporting Skills and Professional Writing Handbook (2nd Edition) is a self-study programme based on the best of ten years' experience running hundreds of training courses. There's a free download of the first module and you need to sign up to receive the remaining modules, free. It is designed to save time and help your team turn out more effective progress and evaluation reports. The programme is also available on CDROM for convenient desktop study, and, for larger organisations, the Trainer Edition is supported by a complete Training Pack.
JHPIEGO TrainerNews© is a free monthly e-mail newsletter with current reproductive health training news, contraceptive briefs, training tips, announcements about reproductive health and training-related programs and activities, and profiles on Internet and CD-ROM resources of interest to reproductive health trainers. The information is targeted to professionals working in low-resource settings.
The EQUITY Project is a joint Project between the Government of the Republic of South Africa and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID)/South Africa. The mission of the EQUITY Project is one of collegial empowerment building capacity in the Eastern Cape Department of Health that assures a dynamic, responsive, sustainable and equitable health system with full participation of all people of Eastern Cape based on the global principles of primary health care. Copies of the following documents are available free of charge from the EQUITY Project by phoning Cathy or Melissa on (040) 635 1310 or writing to: Management Sciences for Health, P O Box 214, Bisho, 5605. Many of the publications can also be downloaded in PDF format from the website.
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.
GuideStar International (GSI) seeks to illuminate the work of civil society organisations (CSOs) around the world. It is based in the UK. Their new website, in co-operation with the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), was started as a joint venture to develop a free web portal for African civil society, showcasing NGOs, charities, non-profit organisations and community-based organisations, ranging from the smallest to the largest. Utilising a shared internet platform, organisations will be able to display their vision and mission, objectives, activities, needs and finances to donors, researchers, policy makers and the general public.
This guide argues that it is both necessary and feasible to remove user fees in order to help poorer people access basic healthcare. It also looks in detail at the case of Uganda, which removed user fees (discontinuing the policy of cost-sharing) in 2001. Using data from a range of countries and worked examples, it demonstrates how to estimate the effect of removing fees on utilisation and the resulting resource requirements. It describes five steps to follow to successfully remove user fees and maximise utilisation of health services: Analyse your starting position, estimate how removing fees will affect service utilisation, estimate additional requirements for human resources and drugs, mobilise additional funding, communicate the policy change and carefully manage the communication process.
This short documentary by Ishaya Bako and Oliver Aleogena, and featuring Nobel Prize laureate Wole Soyinka, provides an insight into the Nigerian fuel subsidy. The film presents the social government spending from the subsidy and presents the reasons for its removal and how this has plunged many Nigerians into poverty.