Friday, 28 September 2012
Alison Evans has announced she will be moving on from the post of ODI Director in the new year. Recruitment for a new Director will begin in October.
MALARIA: Rachel Carson
Ecology
Insecticide Resistance After Silent Spring
Rachel Carson's book Silent Spring, published 50 years ago (1), eloquently awoke the public to the manifold dangers for the environment and human health posed by the wanton use of chemical pesticides (2). Carson argued that in addition to their many harmful ecological effects, chemical insecticides ultimately undermine sustainable pest management: They kill the parasites and predators that formerly held many pests in check, while the pests themselves become resistant and require ever-higher amounts of sprays for their control. Since the publication of Silent Spring, more than 450 arthropod species have been reported with resistance to one or more pesticides (3). Yet over the same period, a paradigm shift in dealing with this global problem has also occurred.
MALARIA: Surviving severe malaria
Surviving severe malaria – looking at the long-term impact on childhood disability
A large study to look at long-term neurological and cognitive impacts on children who survived severe malaria has begun. TDR is working with investigators in Tanzania, Bangladesh and Ghana on a new, two year grant provided by Grand Challenges Canada. The study builds on earlier research, called Study 13, which found that early treatment with an artesunate suppository averted mortality and major brain injury.....
POVERTY: Eliminating onchocerciasis
Onchocerciasis can be eliminated with ivermectin. Proof of principle in specific African endemic areas
A major study has now conclusively shown that ivermectin not only controls onchocerciasis, but it also interrupts transmission and has been able to eliminate the parasite in endemic areas in Africa. Published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, the TDR-supported study in three hyperendemic areas in Mali and Senegal where treatment had been given for 15 to 17 years, shows that those treatments could be safely stopped.
Mass treatment with ivermectin controls onchocerciasis as a public health problem, but it was not known if it could also interrupt transmission and eliminate the parasite in endemic areas in Africa where vectors that carry the parasite are highly efficient. This article reports the results of the final evaluations up to 5 years after the last treatment in which more than 29 000 people and half a million blackflies were examined. The results showed no evidence of renewed transmission after stopping treatment and only continuing declines in infection levels, reaching zero in two sites.
POVERTY: MADAGASCAR: A community protector called Love
Photo: Guy Oliver/IRIN
Love, a community hired security guard, with his young child in Bevilany, in south east Madagascar
The ‘dahalo’, as the bandits are called, are thriving in the country’s rural south, where security forces have been unable to stop them. The dahalo’s primary enterprise is the rustling of zebu, a distinctive and prized breed of humped cattle, which are estimated to number in the millions. The zebu are, by and large, the only possessions of value rural residents have - though the dahalo steal cash and other assets when possible as well - forcing many communities to fend for themselves.
Love, 40, who goes by a single name, is one of three zamasi hired to protect the Bevilany settlement. The community sells two to three truck-loads of charcoal per day, and the cash business is an attractive target for the dahalo.
Love wears a steel-handled dagger at his side and a sword slung across his chest, but carries no guns. “What is sad for me is that we are not armed,” he told IRIN. “We only have machetes and big knives. If we had guns, I could have killed many dahalo.”
The gendarmes, a paramilitary police force with a national complement of about 11,000 personnel, is mandated to provide rural protection, “but they never come here”, villager Rene Rakotmanga, told IRIN Rakotmanga said.
“Before, we tried to protect ourselves, but now it is not possible anymore because the dahalo carry guns, so we cannot fight back... So we hired zamasi,” Rakotmanga said.
The zamasi are each paid about US$400 a year through contributions from the villagers and - according to their contract terms - they also receive coffee each morning and are supplied with soap.
Love is described as an “exceptional fighter” by community members. Still, his weapons are rudimentary compared to his opponents’ firearms.
“We want the government to give us guns, so we can fight the dahalo. That is what we want,” a villager said.
No money, no security
Lt-Col Mbina Mamelison, gendarme commander for the Anosy Region, told IRIN the gendarmes do not cooperate with the zamasi, “but we are thinking about it now”. The problem is that some zamasi have divided loyalties.
| Insecurity in south Madagascar |
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 View slideshow |
The rule for the zamasi is simple: no pay, no protection.
“There was one village nearby, where they did not pay the zamasi and the village was attacked by the dahalo. There is usually one person in a village who knows the dahalo and tells them if there is any money,” villager Allain Ratahafehy told IRIN.
“The dahalo are going from bad to worse. There have been several attacks recently, but we are overwhelmed,” Mamelison said.
Community self-defence units
In Ambinanibe, a lagoon settlement a few kilometres from Taolagnaro, two self-defence units were established after eight of the chief’s zebu were stolen in August. “My grandson needed to pee, so my wife opened the door for him, and she noticed a person in the shadows. She pulled my grandson back as a shot was fired, and then there were two more shots. If I went out, I would have been killed,” Chief Julien Tsarandro told IRIN.
He blamed the theft on the dahalo “because they are the only ones who carry guns.”
Five of his zebu were recovered after trackers pursued the cattle thieves and communities further down the coast were alerted by cell phone of the theft, but the perpetrators have not been caught.
“I am still angry about the theft. One zebu is worth a million ariary [$500]. I gave one zebu to the trackers and five were recovered, so now I have four,” he said.
Now, one of the community’s self-defence units guards the chief’s compound while the other stands vigil for the rest of the village. The patrols offer only limited protection, Tsarandro said, as they possess crude weapons, including axes, rocks, iron rods, knives and a single 12-gauge shotgun. The only qualifications for enlisting are that members be male and over 18 years old.
| Read more |
 The hunt for Remenabila |
| Madagascar's unforgiving bandit lands |
| Gold Panning Girls of Madagascar |
Sgt Jules Tsitonizara, 34, who has fought against the dahalo in the Anosy Region and is now based in Taolagnaro, provides advice to the volunteer self-defence units when he is off-duty.
Tsitonizara’s mother Josephine, 56, was a victim of the recent crime wave in Ambinanibe; the entire $200 contents of her local shop were stolen. “We [the community] asked for help from the military and gendarmes, but they said they could not help,” she told IRIN.
go/rz
Theme (s): Conflict, Governance, Security,
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]
Thursday, 27 September 2012
Global Fund adopts new funding model
JOHANNESBURG, 25 September 2012 (PlusNews) - The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has released initial details on its new funding model, which will change the way countries apply for money. But as the Fund works to finalize the model before next year, civil society is criticizing the process for being untransparent and rushed.
The Global Fund board adopted guiding principles of the model at a mid-September board meeting in Geneva. Although the model’s finer aspects are still being developed, key elements include the allocation of funding to country groupings based on disease burden and ability to pay as well as largely foreseen changes to grant application procedures.
National strategic plans and national investment frameworks for the three diseases that demonstrate value for money will become increasingly important in the allocation of funds, according to the meeting’s decision points.
The Fund’s Strategy, Investment and Impact Committee (SIIC) is rushing to hammer out the model’s details and present them to the Global Fund secretariat in a paper by 15 October. According to board members on the SIIC, committee leadership will be engaging in multiple consultations in person and remotely for feedback until 10 October.
The Global Fund board is expected to make a final decision on the model at its November board meeting.
Funding allocations
The new model arises after a high-level panel reviewed the Fund’s financial controls on how grant money is spent, followingallegations of fraud among fund recipients in countries such as Mali, Mauritania and Zambia.
Among other changes, the new model will group countries by disease burden and World Bank income level, with resulting groups known as “bands”.
Although the Fund’s portfolio deals with three diseases, the Fund anticipates one set of country bands rather than a set of bands for each disease. The number and composite of country groups has yet to be determined.
Without a widely accepted measure of disease burden applicable across the three diseases, the Fund has decided that it will base funding allocations for each diseases on previously used levels for up to one year, until an alternate method of dividing the money can be devised, said Andrew Hurst, head of media relations for the Fund.
This has drawn protests from some groups, including those working to fight tuberculosis (TB), a disease that has traditionally received 16 percent of the Fund's resources; in the run-up to the Fund’s September meeting, advocates from these groups pushed hard to increase this allocation. The StopTB Partnership, for example, argued that if disease allocations were determined by mortality, TB programming would receive about 34 percent of all Global Fund monies.
“Concretely, these low funding levels would mean that the global TB funding gap of over US$2 billion per year for TB would widen, and that global scale-up of TB diagnosis and treatment will halt and potentially reverse,” said the StopTB Partnership in an statement released shortly before the Fund’s meeting in September.
It has since released a statement expressing hopes that a better method will be devised for determining funding allocations in the future.
“While we cannot be very happy with the decision to initially set funding levels for each disease according to historical allocations, it is important to note that this is a one-year temporary measure and that the level of allocation for TB is not set in stone,” said Lucica Ditiu, the partnership’s executive secretary, and Mario Raviglione, head of the World Health Organization’s Stop TB department, in a joint statement. “We understand, too, that this measure was proposed to allow the start of a discussion on a model that will make the Global Fund’s allocations more strategic.”
Grant system to become more flexible
The new model also cements the Fund’s move away from the ‘round’ system, in which calls for grant applications were issued periodically, and towards a more implementation-ready approach to grant provision.
| Read more |
| Global Fund boosts essential services |
| Straight Talk with Global Fund director of country programmes |
| Global Fund shake-up signals new direction |
| A Rogue's Gallery |
| Global Fund cancels funding |
“One key element of the new system will be for applicants to submit a concept note, shorter than previous applications, and then get early feedback from the [technical review panel of the] Global Fund, other donors and technical experts on how the proposal may need adjusting,” said the Fund in a statement. “That is expected to reduce waiting times and improve the overalls success rate of applications.”
With the changing availability of Global Fund resources, the panel will hold proposals that, while technically sound, cannot be funded at the time they are submitted due to insufficient resources. These will be re-reviewed when additional funding becomes available, although how these proposals will be prioritized remains unclear.
Civil Society asks Fund to ‘press the pause button’
As the Fund finalizes the model’s details, many African civil society organizations have expressed dissatisfaction with the speed and transparency of the process.
In late August, ARASA and the South Africa-based World AIDS Campaign launched the ‘Press the Pause Button’ campaign. Endorsed by almost 40 African NGOs, the campaign called for the Fund to develop a more robust and inclusive communication and consultation process around the model’s development.
According to ARASA Advocacy Officer Lynette Mabote, the bulk of African civil society remains largely clueless about the model’s selection and what it will mean for them as implementers.
“They don’t have a clue what this is and what this would mean,” said Rukia Cornelius, programme manager at the World AIDS Campaign. “Global Fund principle recipients are having heart palpitations because the old grant process was already so cumbersome and technical.”
The World AIDS Campaign and ARASA conducted a rapid consultation with almost 60 NGOs in Africa and found that, in the absence of communication from the Fund, the knowledge about the new model is almost non-existent.
“In two weeks, we consulted 56 organizations - and that was without any resources,” Cornelius told IRIN/PlusNews. “For an international financing mechanism like the Global Fund, that has resources, not to be able to do really quality work around consultations - that leaves much to be desired.”
Mabote agreed. “This was being discussed behind closed doors at the Global Fund. Civil society wasn’t privy to it,” Mabote told IRIN/PlusNews. “The Global Fund needs to explain how we got here, give us a timeline of events and explain how we got to this model.”
llg/kn/rz
Theme (s): Economy, Governance, Health & Nutrition, HIV/AIDS (PlusNews),
[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations
POVERTY: DFID
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© 2012 Department for International Development.
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