This report, examining the mood of a country that holds the top spot in the Fragile States Index, is based on field research conducted in South Sudan in April and May 2014.
This report presents three scenarios on the impact of COVID-19 in Africa using economic growth forecasts, mortality and efforts to ameliorate impact through social grants. Likely effects are examined on per capita income, poverty and the attainment of selected Sustainable Development Goals targets. ...Africa’s development trajectory has suffered a severe setback, with extreme poverty rising in all the scenarios. The pandemic threatens Africa in several ways, and the report provides policy recommendations to reduce vulnerability and strengthen resilience.
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This policy brief examines the implications of COVID-19 and the government’s preventative measure for political stability,9 especially in the short to medium term. It argues that in the short term the disease and the preventative measures could make the country less vulnerable to organised politic...al violence and more vulnerable to riots. In the medium and long term, however, vulnerability to both types of violence could increase, depending on the capacity of political forces to instigate and manage conflict and on their willingness to work together.
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The report offers an analysis of the broader challenges to securing humanitarian action and recommends areas for improvement. This study will contribute to improving the way humanitarians ‘do business’ in complex
security environments. Document also available in French, Arabic and Spanish.
This 400 page guide, created by PHI’s Center for Climate Change and Health and the American Public Health Association (APHA), with support from the California Department of Public Health helps local health departments prepare for and mitigate climate change effects—from drought and heat to flood...ing and food security—with concrete, implementable suggestions.
The guide: Provides a basic summary of climate change and climate impacts on health; Prioritizes health equity, explains the disproportionate impacts of climate change on vulnerable communities, and targets solutions first to the communities where they are most needed, including low-income, elderly and people of color communities; Connects what we know about climate impacts and climate solutions with the work of local health departments; and Offers specific examples of how local health departments can address and ameliorate the impacts of climate change in every area of public health practice.
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This book is aimed at policymakers in ministries of agriculture and national agricultural research institutes, as well as multilateral development banks and the private sector and provides guidance on various technology strategies and which to pursue as competition grows for land, water, and energy ...across productive sectors and even increasingly across borders. Climate change, population, and income growth will drive food demand in the coming decades. Food prices are also expected to significantly increase between 2005 and 2050 and the number of people at risk of hunger in the developing world would grow from 881 million in 2005 to more than a billion people by 2050. This book endeavors to respond to the challenge of growing food sustainably without degrading our natural resource bas
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The Americas play a critical role in maintaining global food security while
helping to maintain the maximum levels of greenhouse gas concentrations
established by global climate conferences. This document prepared by the
Living Soils of the Americas initiative presents technologies developed
and... implemented in the region that can help in this huge global challenge
that is the preservation of food production and create favorable conditions
for the adaptation and mitigation of climate change through the adoption
of best agricultural practices
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Benchmarking is a strategic process often used by businesses and institutes to standardize performance in relation to the best practices of their sector. The World Health Organization (WHO) and partners have developed a tool with a list of benchmarks and corresponding suggested actions that can be a...pplied to implement the International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR) and strengthen health emergency prevention, preparedness, response and resilience capacities.
The first edition of the benchmarks was published in 2019 to support countries in developing, implementing and documenting progress of national IHR or health security plans (e.g. national action plan for health security (NAPHS), national action plan for emerging infectious diseases, public health emergencies and health security and other country level plans for health emergencies). The tool has been updated to incorporate lessons from COVID-19 and other health emergencies, to align with the updated IHR monitoring & evaluation framework (IHR MEF) tools and the health systems for health security framework, and to support strengthening health emergency prevention, preparedness, response and resilience (HEPR) capacities and the Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) initiative.
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This report serves as a background paper to five short studies Yemeni-international researcher tandems will jointly develop in the course of 2019. It places a particular focus on ‘peace requirements’, a term that seeks to draw attention to the manifold challenges to establishing stab...ility and building peace in Yemen and the resulting efforts which will be required. This report analyzes the current situation in Yemen by looking at social structures, current conflict dynamics, the role and situation of state institutions and external factors, and then moves on to focus on what is required to build peace in Yemen. In laying out these peace requirements, the report focuses on the following relevant sectors: economy, politics, culture and society, as well as security and justice. In a last step, it takes a look at the challenges to and capacities of five different actor groups in Yemen to address these needs: civil society, women, youth, the media and the private sector
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In the post-colonial history of the Central African Republic, violence has often been the shortest way to presidential power. President Bozizé presented little deviation from this narrative after coming to power after a coup d’état in 2003. Whilst he faced armed opposition and a conflict-affecte...d northwest from the outset, it is not until the rise of the Séléka, that the CAR entered into an era of unprecedented violence.
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Interconnected Disaster Risks is a new science-based report for the general public from United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security. It was first published in 2021, and is set to become an annual report.
In this report a nutrition governance framework was applied to research and analyse the provincial experience with nutrition policy in Pakistan, looking both at chronic and acute malnutrition. Twenty-one in-depth interviews with key stakeholders were also conducted along with a review of published a...nd grey literature. Findings were validated and supplemented by consultative provincial roundtable meetings. Punjab’s nutritional puzzle is that it has high levels of chronic malnutrition and micro-nutrient deficiencies despite a surplus production of food and a low poverty level. Under-nutrition is mainly linked to insufficient attention to preventive health strategies and to a lack of connection between relevant sectors such as Education, Health, Poverty, Safe Water and Sanitation, and Food. Strategic opportunities are recommended which include cross-party political support and ownership for nutrition, with steering by executive leadership; multi-sectoral action and functional integration of various departments and programmes with the creation of a central convening structure for effective cross-sectoral coordination; broadening of nutritional activities beyond salt iodization and vitamin A coverage; central co-ordination of monitoring and evaluation and effective partnerships between the state and non-state sector around data production, awareness, advocacy, and monitoring.
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ABOUT THE REPORT
Based on more than seventy interviews, surveys of both mainstream and social media in Myanmar, and a desk review of available election-related materials, this report evaluates the environment in which the current electoral cycle, Rakhine conflicts, and the 21st Century Panglong pea...ce process intersect and identifies opportunities for mitigating conflict risks in the lead-up to the 2020 Myanmar election.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
Mary Callahan is an associate professor in the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington. Myo Zaw Oo is an independent researcher focusing on conflict and elections.
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Findings on maternal and child health in Nepal, Mozambique and
Rwanda, and neglected tropical diseases in Cambodia and Sierra Leone | This report synthesises findings from five country case studies from the health dimension of this project, which focus on maternal and child health (MCH) (Mozambique...,Nepal, Rwanda) and neglected tropical diseases (NTDs)(Cambodia, Sierra Leone). MCH was selected given its centrality in two of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and its ability to act as a proxy for strengthened health systems. NTDs, while until recently relatively neglected in global policy debates, are now attracting more interest, not least because they are viewed as diseases of the poor whose treatment could positively impact on most of the other MDGs.
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It is widely understood that the food insecurity crisis in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is one of the world’s fastest growing and most neglected crises. It lacks sufficient global focus, resources and urgency. As in so many crises, women and girls are disproportionately affected and shoulder t...he consequences of protracted neglect, with unconscionable impacts on their safety, life chances and agency.
Gaining a holistic view of the gendered drivers, risks and impacts of food insecurity in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is difficult. This is due to a lack of data and prioritization, and the large geographical and socioeconomic terrain covered by both regions. However, what we do know about this crisis is more than enough to urgently address the needs of women and girls.
An OCHA discussion paper on this topic (which will be published imminently, and from which this policy brief is drawn) found that there is:
A strong risk of profound regression in gender equality gains made to date in the countries of concern, including on education, sexual and reproductive health, and the economic independence of women and girls (with knock-on effects on broader humanitarian and development outcomes).
An increasing challenge to reverse what must be recognized as a protracted and growing gender-based violence (GBV) emergency in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa.
The food insecurity crisis in the Sahel and the Horn of Africa is protracted, multidimensional and highly gendered, with spiralling impacts on gender equality and food security outcomes. It is driven by interwoven and overlapping factors, including climate change, political instability, conflict, socioeconomic conditions, migration and displacement and, more recently, COVID-19 and the war in Ukraine. Interlinked with these factors are gendered structural drivers of food insecurity, including deeply entrenched gender inequalities and harmful social norms. Gendered risks and impacts of food insecurity include alarming limitations on access to education, sexual and reproductive health rights, women’s agency and participation, and dramatic increases in different existing forms of GBV and the emergence of new ones. Recognition of such gendered dimensions of food insecurity and of the need for a multisectoral approach in the response is key to addressing the crisis, along-side sustained commitment and adequate allocation of resources. This policy brief draws out key findings from the OCHA discussion paper on this topic, which includes a desk review of studies, assessments and reports, and interviews with local women’s organizations on the front lines of the food insecurity crisis in communities across both regions.
Below are the most pressing gendered drivers, risks and impacts of food insecurity (not in order of priority), as well as key gaps in the current humanitarian response to food insecurity, and recommendations to take forward.
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In Control imparts knowledge, provokes reflection and triggers curiosity. The first half of the book provides an overview of the organisations, principles, frameworks and themes that every professional deploying to health emergencies should be aware of. The second half of the book provides practical... advice to help professionals survive and thrive during their mission – from staying healthy, protecting oneself from cyber-attacks and coping with stress to building trust among the host community or dealing with language barriers and the press.
This handbook is free of charge and can be made available in small quantities as long as supply lasts. To order, please send this form to: incontrol-handbook@rki.de
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Has the world worked together to tackle the coronavirus? July 2021. This research paper assesses how the global community has responded to calls for greater solidarity in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic, and presents the insights of key stakeholders and experts in global health governance, health sec...urity, and pandemic preparedness and response. The authors examine the state of solidarity at global, regional and national levels, and present case studies on COVAX and on the EU’s turbulent journey through solidarity.
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INTRODUCTION: The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted health systems around the world. The objectives of this study are to estimate the overall effect of the pandemic on essential health service use and outcomes in Mexico, describe observed and predicted trends in services over 24 months, and to estimat...e the number of visits lost through December 2020.
METHODS: We used health information system data for January 2019 to December 2020 from the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS), which provides health services for more than half of Mexico's population-65 million people. Our analysis includes nine indicators of service use and three outcome indicators for reproductive, maternal and child health and non-communicable disease services. We used an interrupted time series design and linear generalised estimating equation models to estimate the change in service use and outcomes from April to December 2020. Estimates were expressed using average marginal effects on the risk ratio scale.
RESULTS: The study found that across nine health services, an estimated 8.74 million patient visits were lost in Mexico. This included a decline of over two thirds for breast and cervical cancer screenings (79% and 68%, respectively), over half for sick child visits and female contraceptive services, approximately one-third for childhood vaccinations, diabetes, hypertension and antenatal care consultations, and a decline of 10% for deliveries performed at IMSS. In terms of patient outcomes, the proportion of patients with diabetes and hypertension with controlled conditions declined by 22% and 17%, respectively. Caesarean section rate did not change.
CONCLUSION: Significant disruptions in health services show that the pandemic has strained the resilience of the Mexican health system and calls for urgent efforts to resume essential services and plan for catching up on missed preventive care even as the COVID-19 crisis continues in Mexico.
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Despite its rich culture, great economic potential, high level of education and last but not least its sheer size – it is the largest state whose borders lie entirely within Europe and is 1.7 times the size of the Federal Republic of Germany – Ukraine seems far away in perception and awareness. ...Publications on recent dramatic events, such as the Ukraine conflict or the Crimea crisis, have done little to change this. In fact, the armed conflict in the eastern Ukrainian oblasts of Donetsk and Luhansk, which has been ongoing since February 2014, is still a burdening feature of many political and economic difficulties destabilizing the country. News coverage of health issues in Ukraine has recently been dominated by highly critical reports on the handling of the Covid 19 pandemic. This pandemic exacerbated existing weaknesses in the Ukrainian health care system, but at least it did not create any new ones.
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Annex I to: To stay and deliver, good practice for humanitarians in complex security environments
The principal findings of the report include that despite overall improvements in aid agencies’ security risk management, national aid workers perceive continued inequities in security suppor...t compared with their international counterparts. National aid workers, while less subject to major attacks per capita than international aid workers, nevertheless form the majority of victims, and their specific security needs require more attention.
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