Category Archives: Development Finance

Gillian Price reports on the ‘IF’ campaign – Religious lobby of parliament 15 May 2013

Posted on 16 May 2013 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment

Today’s blog comes from RESULTS volunteer Gillian Price; Gill is a long term member of our Stort Valley group. On Wednesday she attended a CAFOD organised lobby of Parliament to speak with MPs ahead of the June 8th Hunger Summit

IF – Religious lobby of parliament 15 May 2013

DSCF2464This event was billed in development circles as ‘The 500 nuns lobby’.  On the 15th May, 250 religious, priests and associates (Catholic and Anglican) gathered in Methodist Central Hall for a lively service and briefing from various ‘IF’ NGOs. Timothy Radcliffe gave an inspiring talk suggesting that, ‘Starvation is the exclusion of people from the common table of humanity’. There was amazing energy around as we picked up banners, writing the name of our group on the back, paused for a photo call and processed to Westminster.  Someone had had some ‘punning’ fun with the banners – including: ‘Hunger shouldn’t be a habit)!

The Daughters of the Cross (Gillian in green)

The Daughters of the Cross (Gillian in green)

81% of the 250 met with our MP or their office staff.  I and four Asian sisters met for 40 minutes with Charles Rowley, my MP’s Parliamentary Secretary. I pressed home the RESULTS ‘asks’ on undernutrition, the IF campaign asks on tax, transparency and nutrition and (at his request) gave him  an update on TB/miners including news of Mr Mkoko – I also sneaked in cheeky asks on committing to the global fund; enshrining 0.7% in law; disability and education, as well as thanking him profusely for commitments on polio vaccine, 0.7%; ‘the hunger summit’ and asked that the government deliver on its pledges. Charles promised that he would pass the information over to Mark Prisk and that they would tell us what they had done.  The sisters from Asia gave great practical stories of the effects of undernutrition from Pakistan, Nepal and India and I told him about how under-nutrition impacts on TB treatment in Cameroun, telling him of the nutrition programme we are using there along with the drug treatment. He was very interested in Walter Nyika’s story of how food availability in Zimbabwe has changed.  I gave Charles an IF wrist band and badge along with the briefing papers.

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Gillian and the group meet with Charles Rowley, parliamentary assistant to mark Prisk MP

All around Westminster hall there were groups of people gathered round their MPs pressing home their ‘asks’. Ed Miliband, Alan Duncan and Ivan Lewis gave short addresses and the place was a buzz of energy.  Back in Methodist central hall for the final liturgy Sarah Tether told us how motivating it is for her to have committed people like us coming along with strong asks. For many it was the first time lobbying, but afterwards people said how good it was and that they would definitely be lobbying again. It was strange lobbying without the RESULTS gang, and a very different, but positive experience being part of a large lobby – there were even chairs put out for us. We meet again for the IF rally on 8 June  with the strap line –

‘8 leaders.  8 June.  Our chance to stop 1 in 8 people going hungry’

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Posted in Development Finance, Events, Global Health, Grassroots Network, Hunger, News, Nutrition

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Undernutrition and Malaria: A Vicious Circle

Posted on 7 May 2013 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment

Malaria and malnutrition are closely related, as malaria usually affect families that are both poor and malnourished.  The months of the ‘hunger gap’, when malnutrition is at its peak, often coincides with the rainy season, when mosquitoes breed and the number of malaria cases shoots up. The diseases combine in a vicious circle: malnourished children have weak immune systems, so their bodies are less able to fight diseases such as malaria, while children sick with malaria are more likely to become dangerously malnourished.

Credit: These O Duke

Credit: These O Duke

Evidence shows that investing in nutrition is tremendous value for money in the fight against child mortality.  The example of malaria prevention shows that integrating nutrition programs into other development initiatives delivers even greater benefits.

The most underweight children have the highest risk of dying from malaria but if children are deficient in essential micronutrients, such as zinc, Vitamin A, iron and folate, they face dying from malaria even if they are not underweight. Large numbers of children less than five years old suffer and die from malaria due to lack of protein energy, zinc, vitamin A and other micronutrients.

Unlike many causes of death and disability, with appropriate nutritional support these deaths are entirely preventable. With the advances in nets and other simple malaria technologies there is massive potential to bring down child deaths through increased investment in these simple solutions.

Studies have demonstrated that malaria-control programs will have limited success if they do not also address undernutrition.[1]  Nutritional counseling and education of mothers followed by feeding programs have to specifically focus on improving the health of the malnourished. This, alongside malaria-control measures, could reduce deaths from malaria on a large scale if built into a long term programme.

Medicins San Frontiers (MSF) is one of the organisations in the field that is addressing both malnutrition and malaria as public health problems and integrating their prevention and treatment into the set of basic health measures aimed at all young children.  They are currently employing this approach in Niger[2]

“The effort being made to treat malnutrition in Niger is tremendous, and this needs to be supported,” says José Antonio Bastos, president of MSF in Spain. “The problem in 2012 was that a massive plan for treating malnutrition was prepared and implemented, but it excluded other health needs, in particular malaria prevention and immunisations. It failed to take account of the fact that even if you provide children with appropriate nutrition, you can still lose them to malaria or a respiratory infection. There is a need for an integrated response, rather than for pushing one response to the exclusion of others.”

So measures to improve nutrition, if sustained over a number of years, increase the success of other development interventions.  In the UK there is an opportunity to promote this lesson on 8th June, when the Prime Minister is hosting a second ‘Hunger Summit’, co-hosted by the Childrens Investment Fund Foundation (CIFF).  The UK government can take the lead by giving a significant pledge, of £150 million per year, for the next five years. This has been calculated as the UKs ‘fair share’ of the funding gap, according to World Bank figures, and will encourage other donor countries and leverage major contributions from private foundations.

[1] “Malaria, Anemia, and Malnutrition in African Children—Defining Intervention Priorities” Erdhart, et. al. July 2006. http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/194/1/108.full.pdf

[2] http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/press/release.cfm?id=6739&cat=press-release

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Posted in Child Survival, Development Finance, Global Health, Hunger, Nutrition, Women

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Advocacy day trip to an AIDS vaccine lab, as described one who was there

Posted on 2 May 2013 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment

Today’s blog comes from Mark Pointer of our Norwich group, who joined us on out advocacy day trip to a working AIDS vaccine lab.

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Dr Bergin speaks to the group

On the last day of our National Conference, we spent a very enjoyable and informative morning at the Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, as we visited the prestigious Human Immunology Laboratory (HIL).

The HIL is the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative`s flagship laboratory where it performs its own AIDS vaccine research as well as coordinating research for other IAVI labs around the world. IAVI is a global, not-for-profit, public-private product-development partnership working with organizations in countries worldwide to help to develop an affordable AIDS vaccine through research and development, effective clinical trials, education initiatives, policy analysis and advocacy.

We were greeted by Dr Philip Bergin and Dr Emmanuel Cormier, who explained

Dr Bergin shows us the £250,000 multi-laser flow cytometer

Dr Bergin shows us the £250,000 multi-laser flow cytometer

their AIDS research work to date and how HIL serves as a hub for IAVI’s vaccine development partnerships. The HIL team, consisting of 18 research scientists and technicians play a pivotal role in AIDS vaccine development in low and middle income countries. Partners include the Kenya AIDS Vaccine Initiative, Rwanda’s Project San Francisco, the Uganda Virus Research Institute, the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Zambia–Emory HIV Research Project. In some countries where IAVI is not sponsoring clinical studies, the organization works with partners to support AIDS vaccine research and advocacy efforts

The HIL team also oversees the training in IAVI’s extended network of collaborating clinical research centres  With their support nearly all of the labs in this network have received international accreditation in Good Clinical Laboratory Practices (GCLP), ensuring the standardization of laboratory procedures applied in IAVI-sponsored vaccine trials.

Blood samples!

Blood samples!

Dr Bergin took us on a guided tour of the laboratory, explaining the research which was being carried out in different areas. He told us that one of the main problems of the development an AIDS vaccine is the ability of the HIV virus to mutate before immune system antibodies can neutralize the virus. Also, the cost of developing a vaccine became clear when we were told that just one of the pieces of equipment (multi-laser flow cytometer) cost £250,000!

The laboratory is the central Repository where all the specimens from HIV vaccine trials and epidemiology studies are stored and we were very impressed with the liquid nitrogen pods, in which tens of thousands of 1ml specimen tubes are stored either in -180 C in liquid nitrogen pods (Blood) or in– 80 C freezers (Serum).

During a Q & A session with Dr Bergin and Dr Cormier they explained that DFID is a major funder but IAVI has brought in other UK partners including Oxford University, St.George’s Hospital and Imperial College.

Vaccine research is a long-term and costly investment, but the potential rewards

Our handsome Mr Poitner inspects the samples

Our handsome Mr Poitner inspects the samplesare very much more cost effective compared to the price of continual antiretroviral treatment. Currently investment in AIDS vaccine research stands at £800 million compared to the cost of antiretroviral drugs being £22 billion. However, for every two people put on antiretroviral therapy five become newly infected with HIV.

IAVI’s current donors include the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Starr Foundation, the governments of Denmark, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New York City, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Dr Cormier explained that IAVI helps to address the critical gaps in vaccine development by bringing together experience and expertise with ground breaking new early research from academia. In IAVI projected models, if a vaccine can be produced giving 70 % effectiveness against the AIDS virus, it would save 8.9 million lives.

Both doctors have been encouraged by results of a clinical trial in Thailand in 2009 and are hoping that the new development goals feature R & D. They are also hoping that the UK government will understand the value and benefits of a long-term investment into vaccine development.

The HIL is tucked away inside the Chelsea and Westminister Hospital. I work in an NHS laboratory and was not even aware of its existence. Yet, as we walked around the HIL and talked to Drs. Bergin and Cormier it was clear to us that it is carrying out ground breaking work. What a shame its work is not better known and made more visible to potential donors, policy decision makers and the general public. The UK should be very proud of the work these researchers are doing. Just listening to Dr Bergin and Dr Cormier, you can see how passionate and determined they are to maintain the important progress made in IAVI`s research in finding an AIDS vaccine. A vaccine would dramatically transform the lives of millions of people world-wide. It would also reduce the growing need for antiretroviral drugs by stopping AIDS infections taking hold. We sincerely hope that IAVI’s present donors continue to support them are that more donors will come on board to support this vital research.

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Posted in Development Finance, Grassroots Network, immunisation, International Institutions, National Conference, News, Vaccines

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World leaders gather on global education crisis

Posted on 19 April 2013 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment
Girls in Nigeria

Image courtesy of GCE UK / Martin Godwin

This week, an unprecedented gathering of world leaders in Washington DC is seeking to urgently accelerate progress on achieving education for all. 61 million children of primary school age are still out of school around the world, and with less than 1,000 days remaining to the deadline for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), urgent action is needed right now to ensure every child goes to school by 2015.

Heads of global development agencies and ministers from eight developing countries that account for a large proportion of the world’s out-of-school children are meeting to discuss urgent action to remove the barriers to achieving the Millennium Development Goal (MDG2) of universal primary education by 2015 and to close the gap between rich and poor in learning access and outcomes.

Education summit key players

Key Players: (from left to right) Ban Ki-Moon (UN Secretary-General), Jim Kim (President of World Bank), Gordon Brown (UN Special Envoy on Education), Alice Albright (CEO of Global Partnership for Education)

The “Learning for All Ministerial” meetings are taking place ahead of the World Bank Spring Meetings and are co-hosted by Jim Kim, the Bank’s President, Ban Ki-Moon, the UN Secretary-General, and former UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, now the UN’s Special Envoy on Global Education. The countries under discussion are: Bangladesh, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Haiti, India, Nigeria, Yemen, and South Sudan.

Just a few weeks ago, UNESCO released a new estimate of the annual financing gap for achieving education for all, putting it at an astonishing $26billion a year – that’s the gap after existing national government and donor commitments. Without urgent action to close this gap, I’m afraid many children will still be out of school in 2015, and many more will also be in school but receiving such a poor quality education that they are learning very little. The UN estimates that 250million children are still unable to read or write by the time they should be reaching grade 4 of school. At least 1.7million additional teachers need to be recruited if universal primary education is to be achieved by 2015 (1million in Africa alone).

RESULTS are determined to see world leaders taking the bold action required. Today (Friday), we, along with the Global Campaign for Education, Global Partnership for Education (GPE), Oxfam and Plan, have arranged a major discussion on “Financing Education as a Global Public Good: 1000 Days to 2015 and Beyond” (see the invite below for all the details). Our hope is that this session will identify a range of ambitious actions that bilateral donors, national governments, the GPE, the World Bank, the private sector and others can take to get us back on track with education for all.

Financing Education as a Global Public Good

Watch this space for updates from this major global gathering, coming soon!

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Posted in Development Finance, Education for All, Events, International Institutions, News

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No Child Forgotten: Education and Inequality Post-2015

Posted on 19 March 2013 by RESULTS UK| 1 Comment

Girl in Nigeria

Image courtesy of GCE UK / Martin Godwin

“The Millennium Development Goals have left behind millions of forgotten children. Had they tackled educational inequality 9 million more children could now be in school in Nigeria and Pakistan alone.”

The Global Campaign for Education (GCE) UK today launched a new report in Parliament at an event organised by RESULTS for the All-Party Group on Global Education For All.  The new report - No Child Forgotten: Education and Inequality post 2015 – states that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) have done too little to concentrate efforts on the poorest and most marginalized children. It recommends actions to address this when the world agrees a new post-2015 development goals framework. The event took place just as a major global consultation event on post-2015 education was taking place in Dakar, Senegal.

In 2000 the world agreed the MDGs, which included a goal that all children should have the chance to go to school by 2015 and a goal to achieve global gender equality in education. However, the GCE UK report shows that there was too little incentive to focus on inequalities, and nothing said about the quality of education.

Although big progress has been made – with 50 million more children now in school – 61 million children are still denied their right to even a basic primary education. Most of these are from disadvantaged groups; girls, the poorest, children living in disadvantaged areas and children with disabilities. In addition, many millions of children who are in school are receiving such a poor quality education that they are failing to learn even the basics of reading and writing.

“It is vital that we focus on the most pervasive inequalities and that no child is forgotten, including those most at risk – youngsters with severe disabilities.” – David Blunkett MP

David Blunkett MP, who chaired the report launch event in Parliament today, said, “This time round we can’t make the same mistakes. As we get close to 2015 and work on a new strategy for reaching the goal of universal primary education, it is vital that we focus on the most pervasive inequalities and that no child is forgotten.”

The event saw Will Paxton from Save The Children representing GCE UK on a panel of speakers alongside Manos Antoninis from the UNESCO Education For All Global Monitoring Team, Claire Melamed from the Overseas Development Institute (ODI) and Jane Edmondson from the Department for International Development (DfID).

UNESCO have themselves just published briefings ahead of the global consultation in Senegal, including their own proposals for post-2015 goals, targets and indicators which include a strong focus on tackling inequalities. UNESCO have also published new figures on the “education for all global financing gap” – the amount of additional money needed to achieve universal basic education over and above existing government and donor aid resources. Their new brief estimates that there remains a huge $26 billion per year gap in education financing, and that this gap is getting worse as donor aid to education is stagnating.

GCE UK believes that there is a huge opportunity for the British government and the Department for International Development to lead the way and ensure that there is a greater focus on tackling inequality. DfID is a major donor to education globally, and with the UK’s commendable objective of spending 0.7% of national income on overseas aid from this year onwards combined with David Cameron’s role as a Co-Chair of the UN Post-2015 High Level Panel, the UK is in a strong position to take this forward and influence other world leaders.

The GCE report sets out a vision for the ‘post 2015 development framework’- the set of goals that will replace the Millennium Development Goals, and it suggests that assessment mechanisms should be put in place to measure inequalities both in access to education and in the quality of learning outcomes.

The report can be downloaded in full here.

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Posted in Department for International Development, Development Finance, Disability, Education for All, Events, International Institutions, News

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Prime Minister: disability, post-2015 goals and 0.7%

Posted on 14 March 2013 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment
Prime Minister's Questions

Today's PMQs: Prime Minister Cameron flanked by International Development Secretary Justine Greening MP

Prime Minister’s Questions, the weekly opportunity for MPs to grill David Cameron in Parliament on anything and everything, is usually an occasion for highly political shouting matches and “Hear hears” on largely domestic issues. While this week was no exception, it was great to see an MP ask about international development issues at this crucial time. David Blunkett MP, former Labour Education Secretary, used the opportunity to ask the Prime Minister about his leading role in the UN’s High Level Panel on the Post-2015 successor framework to the Millennium Development Goals…

David Blunkett MP

David Blunkett MP asks his question

“What progress has been made by the high-level panel on the development of priorities for the millennium development goals after 2015?“

Mr Blunkett went on to highlight that people with disabilities were one group who had been left behind from much development progress. This is, of course, an issue RESULTS grassroots activists have campaigned about for many years. ‘Disability’ was not mentioned in any of the MDG goals, targets or indicators. Yet there are around 1 billion people living with a disability making up about 15% of the world’s population, and a disproportionate number of the people living in developing countries are disabled because of the close links between poverty and disability. Meanwhile, it is estimated that being a disabled child more than doubles the chance that you will never enroll in school in some countries.

“…Will the Prime Minister identify one group of people who were not included in the millennium development goals and who are often excluded from society and education-those severely disabled young people who face grinding poverty, ill health and the disadvantage of those disabilities? Will the Prime Minister give priority to them in developments over the next two years?”

The Prime Minister’s response was good news. He confirmed: “The right hon. Gentleman makes a very good point about helping disabled people across the world, and we should make sure that the framework we look at properly includes those people.”

And more good news – he also gave a strong defence of the Government’s pledge to reach 0.7% of Gross National Income spending on aid and development, which has come in for criticism ahead of next week’s budget statement….

The Prime Minister on aid spending

The Prime Minister on aid spending

“On the wider issue of our aid budget, I know it is contentious and I know it is difficult, but I believe we should not break a promise that we made to the poorest people in our world. To those who have their doubts I say that of course there is a strong moral case for our aid budget, but there is also a national security case. It is remarkable that the broken countries-countries affected by conflict-have not met one single millennium development goal among them. By helping to mend those countries, often through security work as well as aid work, we can help the poorest in our world.”

We’ll be keeping a beady eye on next Wednesday’s budget speech by George Osborne in the hopes that the Prime Minister’s fine words are confirmed in the latest spending plans. And we’ll also be watching closely as the Prime Minister heads to Indonesia in a few weeks time for the final meeting of the UN’s High Level Panel on Post-2015. Let’s hope they do indeed propose a new framework of development goals that truly includes people with disabilities and other vulnerable groups.

You can watch Prime Minister’s Questions here.

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Posted in Department for International Development, Development Finance, Disability, News

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Countering HIV stigma and creating support in Ethiopia

Posted on 7 March 2013 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment

The following post is brought to you by Steve Lewis, our Global Health Advocacy Manager. Following on from our delegation post, Steve describes our visit to one of Addis Ababa’s health centres:

In February I travelled to Ethiopia with RESULTS staff and five UK parliamentarians to see health programmes and assess the effectiveness of UK support for poverty reduction in the country. The trip was a fascinating mixture of meetings with the ‘highest’ and the ‘lowest’ in the chain of support for poverty-related health programmes.

We met with DFID officials, the Ethiopia Minister of Health and officials at the Africa Union (AU). The meeting with the AU took place in their sleek new building constructed the Chinese government.  But while these meetings provided us facts and figures, it was hard to understand the impact of the work on the ground level.

We were able to see how this work affected communities during a site visit conducted by AMREF to local water and sanitation projects as well as to a local health centre in a poor and crowded urban area of Addis Ababa, the capital of Ethiopia. Queues of patients waited on benches in the open air, waiting to be seen by nurses and staff who work to diagnose and treat common illnesses such as tuberculosis, pneumonia and stunting (malnutrition). The health centre had no actual doctor on site – Ethiopia has an acute shortage of doctors and most other senior health personnel.

I found the most encouraging part of the visit to be a meeting with a support group of women with HIV/AIDS. On previous visits to Africa a few years ago, I had seen high levels of stigma against people living with HIV. No one wanted to admit it, and no one wanted to know. But in this health centre a crowded group of women in multi-coloured dresses sat around a table and waited patiently to tell us their stories.  They told us they meet every Wednesday morning, and their numbers are growing.

As children crawled around the floor, the women were not shy to tell us about their lives. The health centre has diagnosed them with HIV but now provides daily drugs to keep the impact at bay (anti-retrovirals or ARVs). Some years ago a woman would have had to take around a dozen pills a day, with severe side effects, but now they take just three pills.

“What about the side effects?” I asked.

A confident young woman told us she suffers no side effects and feels perfectly healthy. “These ARVs have kept me alive,” she said simply.

The ARVs are bought in bulk for Ethiopia by the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM). Our UK delegation were proud that the UK is one of the biggest donors to the Global Fund.

The other huge advance in medical technology has been vast improvements in ‘Prevention of Mother to Child infection’ (PMTCT). Only ten years ago most babies born to HIV positive women would have been born HIV-positive themselves and would have quickly died. Now, a simple regimen of check-ups and a daily pill at the crucial time means nearly all babies are born HIV-negative. They do not have HIV and have the chance to grow up healthy. This health centre provides 46 women with anti-retrovirals and 44 of them have given birth to healthy children. Two were born with HIV, of which one baby passed away. The HIV-positive child comes with his mother to this support group.

The women give each other emotional support to come to terms with living with HIV. But they hold their heads up and seem happy to talk to strangers about their lives. Our parliamentarians asked many inquiring questions but the women were not fazed.

-          “How many children do you have?”

-          “Two, and that’s enough…”

-          “Do you husbands come to the support group meeting?”

-          “No, and that’s the way we like it.”

-          “What hopes do you have for your daughter when she grows up?”

-           “I would like her to be a doctor.”

The visit provided an excellent example of how Ethiopia is dealing with tough health challenges and effectively demonstrated that UK aid money is being put to good use.

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RESULTS UK leads delegation to Ethiopia

Posted on 1 March 2013 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment

Last week, RESULTS led a cross-party parliamentary delegation to Ethiopia to explore how the country is dealing with key health issues affecting international development. The country continues to face enormous health challenges that include the spread of infectious disease and malnutrition. Yet, in light of this, Ethiopia is making impressive strides towards improving key health indicators and come up with innovative ways of responding to its health worker crisis.

RESULTS was joined by parliamentarians from all three major parties – Sir Tony Cunningham MP, Heather Wheeler MP, Kevin Barron MP, Baroness Hooper and Lord Hussain. The parliamentarians were able to attest that aid works – over the past ten Ethiopia has cut its infant mortality rate in half and it is on track to meet Millennium Development Goal 4 to reduce under-five mortality rates by two thirds. It has also created a model for dealing with its health worker crisis, which has successfully delivered TB care and treatment to the population.

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria

The delegation was able to visit one of only two hospitals in Addis Ababa that treats multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB). With support from the Global Fund, the most successful health financing mechanism to date, the hospital is providing MDR-TB treatment to patients from all over the country. MDR-TB is a form of TB that does not respond to the standard treatment using first-line drugs and is extremely difficult and expensive to treat. The Global Fund grant covered the cost for renovating the hospital’s MDR-TB ward and provides all second-line drugs needed to treat MDR-TB.

Innovative Reponse to the Health Worker Crisis

Ethiopia is one of 57 countries worldwide that faces severe shortages in their healthcare workforce and lacks doctors, nurses, midwives and other health workers needed to deliver healthcare to its population. In response to this crisis, Ethiopia has developed an innovative model called their Health Extension Programme (HEP).

The HEP shifts tasks to less specialised health workers called Health Extension Workers (HEWs) in order to deliver essential healthcare to communities that would otherwise not have access to such services. HEWs are women from the local community aged at least 18 years with 10 years of schooling who are provided with one year of healthcare training encompassing family planning, water and sanitation, and control of infectious diseases, including TB. Two HEWs are placed in each local health posts that provide primary care to their communities.

Health Extension Workers Delivering TB Care

The delegation was able to meet with HEWs in both Addis Ababa as well in more rural settings around Awassa in the south of the country. We were able to visit sites supported by TB REACH, a funding mechanism that finances projects to carry out TB diagnosis and treatment in areas with limited or no access to TB care.

The TB REACH grant currently allows HEWs to collect sputum samples from individuals with TB symptoms and provides local health centres with motor bikes to collect these samples and transport them to the lab for diagnosis. TB diagnosis has more than doubled since the project started, more people are being treated for TB and fewer people are dying or failing to complete their treatment.

Improving Child Survival Rates

Ethiopia’s HEWs have also been trained to treat the diseases that needlessly kill more than hundreds of thousands of children under five each year: malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia, as well as malnutrition. Within the HEW programme’s first five years, malaria death rates in Ethiopia decreased by more than half and new HIV infections fell by 25 percent. In addition, mortality of children under five dropped by 28 percent, a lauded outcome.

The UK Government is a key donor supporting the Ethiopian Government to carry out health interventions that are working. The delegation heard time and again about how effectively and transparently the Ethiopian Government is using UK aid to reach the most vulnerable, making a real difference in the lives of some of poorest. The delegation validated that UK aid equals excellent value for money.

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Posted in Development Finance, Global Health, Hunger, immunisation, Sanitation, TB, Vaccines

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RESULTS welcomes Alice Albright as new CEO of Global Partnership for Education

Posted on 27 February 2013 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment
Alice Albright

Alice Albright. Image courtesy of US Global Leadership Coalition (http://www.usglc.org)

Last week, Dan Jones (our Campaigns Manager and education lead) had the opportunity to welcome Alice Albright to the UK as part of a roundtable with other civil society organisations during her first few weeks as the new (and first) Chief Executive of the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). This is exciting news!

The GPE is the only multilateral funder dedicated to ensuring every child can receive a quality education, and so has a crucial and urgent leadership role to play in tackling the global education crisis. The appointment of their first Chief Executive is part of an ongoing programme of reform to strengthen the GPE’s capacity to meet its objectives, and Ms Albright was quick to point out her years of experience at GAVI (the Global Alliance on Vaccines and Immunisations) which involved successful efforts to scale up GAVI to meet the big challenge of ensuring every child receives basic vaccinations.

The Global Partnership for Education is a unique partnership made up of over 50 developing country governments, as well as other donor governments, civil society organizations, teacher organizations, international organizations, and private sector organizations and foundations, whose joint mission is to galvanize and coordinate a global effort to provide a good quality education to children, prioritizing the poorest and most vulnerable.

Continue reading →

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Posted in Development Finance, Education for All, immunisation, International Institutions, News

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New UK support for girls education announced

Posted on 19 February 2013 by RESULTS UK| Leave a comment
Girls education

Photo and copyright: Erik Törner, IM Individuell Människohjälp www.manniskohjalp.se

Last week, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and International Development Minister Lynne Featherstone launched new education projects in Mozambique and Ethiopia that will help 89,000 girls gain an education and improve their life chances.

“I’m convinced that giving girls a good education is the single most effective thing we can do to break the cycle of poverty”

- Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg

These projects were three of the first fifteen ‘Step Change’ programmes to be awarded funding under the UK Department for International Development’s new Girls Education Challenge Fund, which aims to create education opportunities for some of the world’s most marginalised girls.

As a result of the Millennium Development Goals’ focus on gender equality, significant progress has been made in expanding girls’ access to education in the poorest countries. But despite this, girls continue to be disadvantaged in many countries and regions.  Sixty-eight countries have yet to achieve gender parity in primary education. Girls account for 65% of children not in school in Western Asia, and 79% in Northern Africa. And in many countries girls are also less likely to go on to secondary school, putting them at a further disadvantage.

So the Girls Education Challenge Fund is hugely important, particularly because of its focus on supporting innovative projects led by a range of organisations aiming to reach the most marginalised girls.

Nick Clegg & Lynne Featherstone in Mozambique

Nick Clegg & Lynne Featherstone in Mozambique. Photo: Crown copyright.

According to DFID, the projects in Mozambique and Ethiopia will help 89,000 girls get a decent education by boosting literacy, training teachers and even training bus drivers to provide safe school transport. Among the other projects that are being funded are initiatives to reach girls in challenging environments like Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Sierra Leone and Somalia.

The UK’s focus on girls education is vital, showing much-needed leadership to the international community. We hope that this new fund and its focus on innovation may in time also provide a model for DFID as they seek to strengthen their support to other marginalised groups such as children with disabilities.

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Posted in Department for International Development, Development Finance, Disability, Education for All, News, Women

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