Bezalel

Applied research on arsenic in Bangladesh 'Arsenic contamination in groundwater is a serious public health problem in Bangladesh and currently the majority of the World's patients suffering chronic arsenic poisoning are to be found here. The World Health Organization is playing its normative role to address arsenic-related health problems in Bangladesh and is providing technical assistance to the government in terms of capacity building, development of training materials, and research which has been well received and appreciated by the health sector.'

'What are the impacts of of parental death and chronic poverty on children's education and health in Indonesia? This paper estimates the short- and long-term effects of maternal and paternal death on children's school enrolment, educational attainment and health in Indonesia, and compare it with the effect of chronic poverty. The authors also investigate whether there are any gender dimensions of the effects.'

'This paper investigates whether the death of a parent during middle childhood affects child schooling and subjective well-being (SWB) in Ethiopia. The data comes from two rounds of the Young Lives survey, conducted in 2002 and 2006, of an initial sample of 1000 children across 20 sentinel sites in Ethiopia. The children were seven to eight years of age in 2002 and 11 to 12 years of age in 2006, with around 80 losing a parent between rounds.'

The unprecedented turmoil in the world's financial markets has resulted in a significant loss of trust in the global financial system. Financial institutions and the market as a whole have been criticised for short-termism, for lacking transparency, and for not being properly accountable to regulators or to wider society. The credit crisis has also raised wider questions about the proper role of investors in society, both in terms of the specific investments that they make and the manner in which they use their influence to ensure that the positive social and environmental impacts of their investment activities are maximised, and the negative impacts minimised.

'Access to essential goods at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP) is limited by high prices, and inadequate rural distribution, which also restricts the poor in distributing their produce. This paper examines specific strategies for reaching the BOP using three socially responsible distribution case studies of multinationals, government and NGO initiatives in India. It identifies how socially responsible distribution can be achieved by strategies that take cost out, reinvent the distribution channel or take a long-term perspective that invests for the future.'

'This paper analyses the relationship between low pay and corruption in developing countries, using studies from public hospitals in Latin America.One of the most important ways that pay can deter corruption is if it increases the penalty of being caught and dismissed. If an individual earns a premium in their job above what they would otherwise earn in another job, then that premium is at risk if that individual should commit fraud and be caught and dismissed.'

'The global financial crisis and the high cost of food mean different things in different places. In those parts of the world where hunger is on the march, their impact can be measured in empty stomachs and blighted lives. So serious is the food-security situation in the central state of Madhya Pradesh (MP) that, when inserted into the country table of the Global Hunger Index, the state falls between Ethiopia and Chad which are among the 10 poorest-performing countries in the world. One third of the children under five in MP suffer from wasting (too thin for their height) and 60 per cent are underweight (too thin for their age), according to India's most recent National Family Health Survey.'

Even in hard times, it can make commercial sense for companies to develop markets that include poor people, and business models that address poverty. Businesses that create decent jobs, access to markets or goods and services that benefit low-income groups in emerging economies help to build healthier, wealthier, and more highly skilled communities. Those communities will provide the customers, suppliers, and employees that companies need for sustainable growth. Full paper in PDF format; Number of pages: 12p

The growing of the Microfinance Institution (MFI) movement has created great expectations because the MFIs have been seen as an instrument to tackle poverty and promote micro entrepreneurship. However the exponential expansion of the industry and the newly business consciousness need to be properly tackled to avoid the microfinance movement going adrift, namely where the industry could become a tool of wealth redistribution without accumulation in presence of spot areas where it could evolve by neglecting its genuine mission.'

The aim of this paper is to provide a systematic review of the estimation of the cost of illness (COI) related to maternal- newborn ill-health (MNIH). The methodology used for the review includes a systematic search on electronic databases for published literature and manual searches for the identification of grey (unpublished) literature.The published study estimates most of the cost components associated with a particular complication of MNIH - emergency obstetric care (EmOC) - and reports a total average cost per user of EmOC in the range of US$ 177-369 in Bangladesh. The unpublished studies based on the REDUCE model illustrate the MNIH issue more directly and elaborately; however, they estimate merely the productivity cost for four African countries. The model estimates a huge amount of productivity losses associated with MNIH: an annual total of about US$ 95 million for Ethiopia and about US$ 85 million for Uganda.

This guide has been produced by the World Health Organization to assist countries with limited resources in their efforts to reduce neonatal mortality and to ensure care for newborn babies with problems due to complications of pregnancy and childbirth, such as asphyxia, sepsis, and low birth weight or preterm birth. The main section of this guide is arranged by clinical signs or findings, which facilitates early identification of illness, and provides up-to-date guidelines for clinical management. Use of these guidelines is essential in promoting and assessing the quality of health services and training providers and supporting quality services through supervision and feedback on performance.

This document includes an overview of the September 2007 meeting which was convened to consider program needs and identify critical research to accelerate the availability and use of safe, effective, affordable, simple, and feasible community case management approaches for neonatal sepsis/infection among families with no or limited access to facility-based care.

Many health and development programs use behavior change communication (BCC) to improve people's health and wellbeing, including family planning and reproductive health, maternal and child health, and prevention of infectious diseases. BCC is a process that motivates people to adopt and sustain healthy behaviors and lifestyles. Sustaining healthy behavior usually requires a continuing investment in BCC as part of an overall health program. The tools in this issue of INFO Reports are meant to help with planning and developing a BCC component in family planning programs. Full paper in PDF format (987kb); Number of pages: 8p

'Growing demand for energy and natural resources has led many low-income, resource-rich countries to open remote areas to industrial development. Even as a financial crisis engulfed the global economy in 2008 and 2009, projects such as oil pipelines, roads, and mines continued to remain key development priorities.' Source: WRI

by Ben Block on April 2, 2009 As leaders of the world's 20 largest economies gathered in London this week, international financial institutions announced that the world economy would likely deteriorate more in 2009 than was previously feared. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development predicted that economic activity would shrink 2.7 percent; the World Bank projected a slightly more optimistic contraction of 1.7 percent. To gain perspective about today's many interrelated sustainability issues, Worldwatch staff writer Ben Block pulled aside Björn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD), for an interview this week at a U.S. National Academies of Science climate change summit. Stigson has overseen the global coalition of some 200 leading corporations since 1995. How do you expect the ongoing recession to affect sustainable business efforts, such as reducing pollution, water consumption, and energy use? Are businesses turning away from corporate responsibility? The question I get from around the world is: Has sustainable development fallen off the table given there is a recession? My response is the opposite. What has happened is that sustainable development has come to a tipping point, in my view, and that the focus on the strategic aspect on sustainable development, climate change, and so on - that focus is even stronger than before. It's stronger in companies, and it's stronger in governments. The recession is not really a barrier or a blockage.