MALARIA: Rwanda: Country's Textile Factory to Produce Malaria Bed Nets

Bosco Hitimana : 6 June 2011
Rwanda's textile factory Utexrwa announced it is switching to production of insecticide treated malaria bed nets for both local and foreign markets. The factory's Managing Director Mr. Rajendran Ranganathan told East African Business Week that it has an annual potential to produce about 12 million bed nets.
"Malaria bed nets have a huge demand in Africa," said Rajendran.
He said the estimated demand on the continent in 2010 is in the range of around 300 million but less than 30 million nets are produced annually.
For the beginning, the factory has secured over US$400,000 from Heineken to produce 70,000 bed nets for the Rwandan population. Meanwhile Rwanda requires about 4 million bed nets.
"Since this money is given to us at once, we are using it to establish the capacity."
Heineken contracted Utexrwa to produce the bed nets as part of its corporate social responsibility in Rwanda. Rajendran said that the initial tests showed that the factory has the desired quality of the impregnated bed nets and it is now arranging for bigger commercial production.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201106080031.html

MALARIA: Rwanda: Malaria Decreases By 70 Percent

Fred Ndoli : 21 Mar 2011 : New Times (Kigali)
Rwanda is on track to enter the malaria pre-elimination phase.
According to a Rwanda malaria performance program review, by 10 external experts, the country has managed to bring down the disease by 70 percent.
The period studied was between 2001and 2010.
The review findings indicate that there was a 61 percent decline in deaths caused by malaria within the same period.
The report also indicates an improvement in malaria case management as it rose from 77.4 percent in 2006 to 85.7 percent by December 2010.
According to the report, there was also an increase in the percentage of children - under five years - with malaria who received treatment within 24 hours, from 62 percent in 2008 to 89 percent in 2010, whereas among pregnant women, it rose from 60 percent to 89.2 percent in 2010.
The acting Director General of TRAC Plus, Dr. Corine Karema, said the country intends to reduce Malaria infection by 90 percent by 2012.
"In a quick survey we conducted, the household ownership of mosquito nets is now 98,99 %, but the usage of them is still low, people still have wrong perception about them," said Karema, adding that more campaigns will be conducted to influence behavior change in communities.
Over six million mosquito nets have been distributed since 2009 in which each household has at least three mosquito nets.
However, Dr Karema called on stakeholders for more financial support to meet their malaria pre-elimination goals.
"There has been declining gap in funding malaria control, from 2009-2011; funding gap of 55% whereas from 2012 to 2013 there is gap of 70%," Karema said.
After presenting the review findings, representatives of the stakeholders, jointly signed a statement committing to work together to follow up on the recommendations and support activities aimed at achieving a malaria free Rwanda.
The stake holders included, the Mission Director of USAID, the WHO Represenative, the RDO Executive Secretary, the Director of SPH, Dr Karema and the Permament Secreatry, Dr Agnes Binagwaho, on behalf of the Ministry of Health.
Dr. Binagwaho, attributed the improvement in the fight against malaria to the government's leadership and evidence-based policies on health sector.
"These tremendous trends couldn't have been achieved without the particular emphasis of the government, especially our President," she said.
Binagwaho added that there is still a challenge of cross-boarder threats, and there is need to harmonise malaria control interventions in the region.
"We are going to go for a regional approach so that there is integration of the same interventions," she noted.
The country Director of USAID, Dennis Weller, urged the health sector to continue being more vigilant on malaria control surveillance.
http://allafrica.com/stories/201103210021.html

http://www.fightingmalaria.org/news.aspx?id=1593

POVERTY: Why being up close with poverty can bring positive benefits

Jonathan Glennie  9 March 2011
Why being up close with poverty can bring positive benefits
The more decision-makers see the reality of poverty and stark injustices for themselves, the more likely they are to make decisions in favour of the poorest



Lenny jokes with Lynette (R), Bernard (2nd R), Daniel (C), Sharon (L front), and Silvia (L back) in Kibera, Nairobi, Kenya. Photograph: Siegfried Modola/BBC

Last week I watched Famous, Rich & in the Slums, a television show to get the British public in the mood for giving as the annual Comic Relief jamboree approaches. Lenny Henry and three other celebrities went to live for a week in Kibera slum in Nairobi, Kenya. The poverty is dirty and desperate, and 20% of children in Kibera die before they reach the age of five.
This kind of "immersion" exercise is occasionally recommended for people seeking to understand more about the reality of poverty, including aid officials and politicians. Fifty Conservative MPs visited Rwanda in 2007 where they slept in huts and did manual labour.
When people come back talking about life-changing experiences they are sometimes treated with cynicism. Critics say the visits don't teach you what it really means to be poor, because being poor means not being able to leave a week later in business class. Poverty is insecurity and lack of opportunity; affluent people will never really understand that.
But the cynics are wrong. Of course you can never understand poverty by spending a few days with poor people. But you have to start somewhere, and there is no better place to begin. Most people in rich countries have no idea what extreme poverty is like, and knowing a little bit is better than knowing nothing at all.
When I was 18, I worked for six months with street children in Medellin, the second biggest city in Colombia. I was meant to be helping them but, predictably, did very little of concrete value. I spent most of my time being ridiculed for my bad Spanish and having my clothes stolen.
But what I saw there changed my life. I had never seen anything more tragic than young kids with nothing, rolling about in the gutter, high on glue because they had no hope. You might say that poverty closer to home is tragic as well, and it is. But I made a decision there and then to work to do something about this affront to human dignity.
Of course, the important thing is not actually being there in person, but the ability to empathise. Most people never see extreme poverty first hand, but are still able to empathise, just by hearing about it, or seeing it on television. At university I set up a charity called Students Supporting Street Kids with a friend. The idea was to bring the reality of street children's lives to student common rooms, and to make some money.
Strange as it may seem, some people see tragic poverty at first hand every day but remain unsympathetic. The elite and much of the middle class in very poor countries are often less concerned than people thousands of miles away about poverty in their own countries. Humans have a worrying ability to blinker themselves to inconvenient realities.
But empathy is not enough. Nor is anger. Once the heart is activated, the head must be applied. During his time in Kibera, Reggie Yates, one of the celebrities I had never heard of in the Comic Relief programme, says: "Now all I want to do is understand." That is the same first step that many people take the first time they are personally confronted with the reality of our unjust world.
The anti-poverty industry is a multibillion-dollar money spinner. You can go to conferences and talk all day about growth, trade, debt restructuring, aid effectiveness, tax holidays, international financial architecture and supply chains, and then, as you're leaving the posh hotel you've been staying in, realise that you haven't once even mentioned the word poverty, let alone thought about poor people.
The longer you stay in the anti-poverty business, the less likely you are to know anyone who is poor. The danger is that you slowly forget about the real lives you are supposed to be trying to change for the better. And that influences the kind of decisions being made.
The more decision-makers see stark injustices for themselves, the more likely they are to make decisions in favour of the poorest. Immersing politicians in the reality of poverty, even for a short while, can be money very well spent.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/mar/09/impact-of-witnessing-poverty

MALARIA: Rwanda: Nation On Track to Become Malaria-Free

Edwin Musoni : 9 March 2011
Kigali — Rwanda may be the first country to eliminate Malaria in the region if all strategies set forward are implemented according to plan.
According to the Director of Malaria unit in TRAC Plus, Dr. Corine Karema, the country intends to enter a pre-elimination phase come 2012.
"We have a strategic plan to enter a pre-elimination phase in 2012, and according to the internal review we did with the country team, we realized that we have achieved more than 80 percent of our targets," said Karema, who is also the acting Director General of Trac Plus.
She made the remarks at the beginning of a two-week meeting of experts aimed at reviewing progress regarding Malaria control.
"Today, we have external reviewers who are here to help us know where we are and re-orient our strategies towards pre-elimination of Malaria by 2012," she explained.
For the pre-elimination phase, the health sector had to first consolidate all interventions, and currently the country plans to upgrade universal coverage of mosquito nets distribution to ensure that all people in the country use them.
"The next step will be discussing with all neighbouring countries to have harmonized Malaria control strategies," she said.
"We have distributed more than six million mosquito nets since 2009 and we ensured that over 90 percent of all households in the country have at least three mosquito nets," said Karema.
During the same event, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Health, Dr. Agnes Binagwaho, said that her ministry normally conducts regular Malaria reviews, but the current one was the first that brought on board external experts and health partners.
"We will review all the achievement and challenges. This is going to be done by external reviewers who will look at our policies, strategies and programme implementation," said Binagwaho.
She emphasized that; "Malaria control in the country is performing well; we have better results than other countries. Programmes are not fragmented; they are all integrated in the basic health care."
Although Rwanda has made huge strides in malaria control, Binagwaho said that the country faced a problem two years ago, when there was an eight-month delay in supplying mosquito nets.
"In the process, 600 people died of malaria but we made a quick recovery," she said.
Meanwhile, the head of the review team, Dr. Akpaka Kalu said that; "We have heard very good things about Malaria control in Rwanda. This country has a vision of moving toward Malaria elimination, and hopefully a Malaria-free country. So the assignment we have is to review the programmes and try to define strategies that would lead Rwanda towards a Malaria free future."

Kalu is an advisor to the World Health Organization on Malaria

http://allafrica.com/stories/201103090022.html

TUBERCULOSIS: Rwanda to launch free immunization campaign against TB

KIGALI, Jan. 26 (Xinhua) -- Rwanda will on Monday launch a nationwide immunization campaign against tuberculosis for 3 million children in a bid to eradicate the disease, considered as one of the leading causes of child mortality in developing nations. The campaign will focus on children ages eight months to 12, Dr Richard Sezibera of Rwanda's Ministry of Health said in a press release on Tuesday.
"Immunization against tuberculosis is necessary to prevent a high infant mortality rate in Rwanda," the statement added.
A total of 1,769 TB cases were reported in the tiny Central African nation during the second quarter of 2010, according to statistics made available by the government's Treatment and Research on HIV/AIDS Center.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/health/2011-01/27/c_13709463.htm

MALARIA: WHO World Malaria Report for 2010

Summary
The World Malaria Report 2010 summarizes information received from 106 malaria-endemic countries and other partners and updates the analyses presented in the 2009 Report. It highlights continued progress made towards meeting international targets for malaria control to be achieved by 2010 and 2015. The report outlines the evolving situation of financing for malaria control, how these growing resources have resulted in increased coverage of WHO-recommended malaria control interventions, and the association between this
rapid scale-up and substantial reductions in malaria burden.

International funding for malaria control has risen steeply in the past decade. Disbursements reached their highest ever levels in 2009 at US$ 1.5 billion, but new commitments for malaria control appear to have stagnated in 2010, at US$ 1.8 billion. Countries with smaller populations at risk continue to receive more funding per person at risk than more populous countries. The amounts committed to malaria, while substantial, still fall short of the resources required for malaria control, estimated at more than US$ 6 billion for the year 2010.

The increased financing has resulted in tremendous progress in increasing access to insecticide-treated mosquito nets (ITNs) in the past 3 years. By the end of 2010, approximately 289 million ITNs will have been delivered to sub-Saharan Africa, enough to cover 76% of the 765 million persons at risk of malaria. It is estimated that 42% of households in Africa owned at least one ITN in mid-2010, and that 35% of children slept under a ITN. The percentage of children using ITNs is still below the WHA target of 80% partly because up to the end of 2009, ITN ownership remained low in some of the largest African countries. Low rates of use reported in some surveys are primarily due to a lack of sufficient nets to cover all household members; household survey results suggest that most (80%) of the available ITNs are used.

While the rapid scale-up of ITN distribution in Africa represents an enormous public health achievement, it also represents a formidable challenge for the future in ensuring that the high levels of coverage are maintained. The lifespan of a long-lasting ITN is currently estimated to be 3 years. Nets delivered in 2006 and 2007 are therefore already due for replacement, and those delivered between 2008 and 2010 soon will be. Failure to replace these nets could lead to a resurgence of malaria cases and deaths.

IRS programmes have also expanded considerably in recent years, with the number of people protected in sub-Saharan Africa increasing from 13 million in 2005 to 75 million in 2009, corresponding to protection for approximately 10% of the population at risk in 2009.

Current methods of malaria vector control are highly dependent on a single class of insecticides, the ethroids, which are the most commonly used compounds for IRS and the only insecticide class used for ITNs. The widespread use of a single class of insecticide increases the risk that mosquitoes will develop resistance, which could rapidly lead to a major public health problem. The risk is of particular concern in Africa, where insecticidal vector control is being deployed with unprecedented levels of coverage and where the burden of malaria is greatest.

WHO now recommends that all cases of suspected malaria be confirmed with a diagnostic test prior to treatment. As the incidence of malaria decreases through much of sub-Saharan Africa, the need to differentiate malaria from non-malarial fevers becomes more pressing. The proportion of reported cases in Africa confirmed with a diagnostic test has risen substantially from less than 5% at the beginning of the decade to approximately 35% in 2009, but low rates persist in the majority of African countries and in a minority of countries in other regions. A small number of countries have shown that it is possible to scale up rapidly the availability of malaria diagnostic testing on a national scale, provided that attention is given to adequate preparation, training, monitoring, supervision and quality control. Such experiences have been linked with large savings in the use of artemisinin-based combination therapies (ACTs) and with improved malaria veillance.

Information from manufacturers indicates that the number of ACTs procured has increased in every year since 2005. By the end of 2009, 11 African countries were providing sufficient courses of ACTs to cover more than 100% of malaria cases seen in the public sector; a further 8 African countries delivered sufficient courses to treat 50%–100% of cases. These figures represent a substantial increase since 2005, when only 5 countries were providing sufficient courses of ACT to cover more than 50% of patients treated in the public
sector. However, information on access to treatment is generally incomplete, particularly for the significant proportion of patients treated in the private sector.

The use of oral artemisinin-based monotherapies threatens the therapeutic life of ACTs by fostering the spread of resistance to artemisinins. By November 2010, 25 countries were still allowing the marketing of these products and 39 pharmaceutical companies were manufacturing them. Most of the countries that still allow the marketing of monotherapies are located in the African Region and most of the manufacturers are in India. The spread of resistance to antimalarial medicines over the past few decades has led to an intensification of efficacy monitoring to allow early detection of resistance. Despite the observed changes in parasite sensitivity to artemisinins, the clinical and parasitological efficacy of ACTs has not yet been compromised, even in the Greater Mekong sub-region. Nonetheless, both components of the drug combination are currently at risk and using an ACT with an ineffective partner medicine can increase the risk of development or spread of artemisinin resistance.

A total of 11 countries and one area in the WHO African Region showed a reduction of more than 50% in either confirmed malaria cases or malaria admissions and deaths in recent years. A decrease of more than 50% in the number of confirmed cases of malaria between 2000 and 2009 was found in 32 of the 56 malaria-endemic countries outside Africa, while downward trends of 25%–50% were seen in 8 other countries. Morocco and Turkmenistan were certified by the Director-General of WHO in 2009 as having eliminated malaria.

In 2009, the European Region reported no cases of P. falciparum malaria for the first time. It is estimated that the number of cases of malaria rose from 233 million in 2000 to 244 million in 2005 but decreased to 225 million in 2009. The number of deaths due to malaria is estimated to have decreased from 985 000 in 2000 to 781 000 in 2009. Decreases in malaria burden have been observed in all WHO Regions, with the
largest proportional decreases noted in the European Region, followed by the Region of Americas. The largest absolute decreases in deaths were observed in Africa.

While progress in reducing the malaria burden has been remarkable, there was evidence of an increase in malaria cases in 3 countries in 2009 (Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, and Zambia). The reasons for the resurgences are not known with certainty. The increases in malaria cases highlight the fragility of malaria control and the need to maintain control programmes even if numbers of cases have been reduced substantially. The experiences in Rwanda and Zambia also indicate that monthly monitoring of disease surveillance data, both nationally and subnationally, is essential. Since many countries in sub-Saharan Africa had inadequate data to monitor disease trends, it is apparent that greater efforts need to be made to strengthen routine surveillance systems. Major epidemiological events could be occurring in additional countries without being detected and investigated.

POVERTY: WHO: Spiraling Health Costs Push 100 Million People Into Poverty

Geneva 22 November 2010



Photo: WHO UN HABITAT / Anna Kari Share This

The World Health Organization says spiraling health costs push 100 million people into poverty every year. Now, a WHO report provides practical guidelines on how governments can strengthen their health financing systems, and make services available to more people.
Rich and poor governments alike are struggling to pay for health care. Some people have good health plans that cover most of their expenses. But, they are in the minority.
The World Health Organization reports about one billion people in the world do not get the health services they need, because they are not available or are not affordable.
WHO Health Systems Financing director, David Evans, says these people have a difficult choice to make. Either they pay directly for health services they cannot afford, or delay care and run the risk of getting a more serious disease.
"Probably 100 million people make the choice to use their services each year, pay for them, and they suffer the financial consequences. They are pushed down the poverty line simply because they pay for health services," Evans said.
He adds that although this is unacceptable, there is an alternative.
"But, what the report says, it is not just acceptable, but it is not necessary. Something could be done about it, and something can be done about it now," Evans stressed.
The report highlights three key areas of change.
It says governments can raise and allocate more money for health. For example, WHO notes, in 2000, African heads of state committed to spend 15 percent of government funds on health. So far, three countries, Liberia, Rwanda and Tanzania have achieved this.
The report says governments also could raise money more fairly and spend it more efficiently. Evans says a number of countries are adopting these options with some success.
"Gabon is a low income country. It has introduced a tax on financial transactions, and that is going to help. If Gabon can do something like that, other countries can do it," Evans said. "In terms of financial risk protection, Thailand has introduced health insurance for everyone, and that health insurance is tax-funded, particularly for the poor. So, that what happens is, the insurance now pays the cost that the people would have paid previously out of their own pockets."
The report says smarter spending could increase global health coverage between 20 and 40 percent. It identifies 10 areas where greater efficiencies are possible.
One is in the purchase of medicines.
France is an example of this. It uses generic drugs wherever possible, a policy that saved the country almost $2 billion in 2008. The report says more efficient spending on hospitals could boost productivity by 15 percent.
WHO acknowledges impoverishment and financial catastrophe are more prevalent in low-income countries because people there rely more on out of pocket payments for health care. Therefore, it says, poor countries will need more help from the international community.
http://www.voanews.com/english/news/health/WHO-Spiraling-Health-Costs-Push-100-Million-People-Into-Poverty--109880574.html

POVERTY: Agricultural Growth and Investment Options for Poverty Reduction in Rwanda

Agricultural development strategies that are put forward by individual African countries delineate priorities for actions to enhance agricultural and overall development. Understanding alternative agricultural growth options and their linkages with poverty reduction and prioritizing agricultural investments are the two key components of an agricultural development strategy. However, the relationships between growth and poverty reduction and between targeted growth and required public investment are not straightforward, and solid research is needed to support an evidence-based policymaking process. This monograph provides such a study using Rwanda as a case. An economywide model is developed for the study and is applied to the most recent economic data and public investment information to analyze agricultural growth and investment options for poverty reduction in Rwanda. The monograph shows that the country’s targeted agricultural subsector growth, if achieved, would allow Rwanda to meet the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP) target of 6 percent annual growth in agricultural gross domestic product (GDP) by 2020. With comparable growth in the nonagricultural sector, rapid economic growth would result in the national poverty rate falling to 35.5 percent by 2015, a reduction of 25 percentage points over the 1999 rate. Although the majority of rural households benefit from rapid agricultural growth, the most vulnerable households—those with very small landholdings and with few opportunities to participate in the production of export crops—appear to benefit less. The report shows that economywide growth led by the agricultural sector has a greater effect on poverty reduction than does the same level of growth driven by the nonagricultural sector. Among agricultural subsectors, growth driven mainly by increased productivity in staple crops has the greatest poverty reduction effect. The report points out that meeting the CAADP 6 percent agricultural growth target in Rwanda will require the allocation of public resources to the agricultural sector to rise significantly and reach 10 percent of the total government budget. Estimated economywide returns to public investment in agriculture are high and will come not only from growth in the agricultural sector. Through linkage and multiplier effects, one dollar of public investment in agricultural staples generates US$3.63 of increased agricultural GDP (AgGDP) and US$0.21 of increased nonagricultural GDP. In the agricultural sector, economywide returns from investing in staple foods, including staple crops and livestock, are much higher than those from investing in export crops. But even though the investment returns are high, the planned amount of investment in Rwanda will not be enough to significantly improve the current low yields of many foodcrops in the country. The average yield for maize will stay at a low level in 2015—a level already reached by many African countries today.
The report also points out the trade-offs between rapid growth and low
economywide returns from investing in the export sector. Targeting the export sector through public policy and investment will bring double-digit growth to the sector, measured by an increase in GDP; however, economywide returns to such investments are low. The weak linkages of the export sector with other economic activities on both the supply and demand sides reduce the role of the export sector as a key driver in both overall economic growth and poverty reduction. Nevertheless, the export sector has often attracted more government attention than has the agricultural sector in many African countries, with favorable policies and investment support. The findings of this report, which show relatively low economywide returns to public spending in the export sector and relatively less poverty reduction from growth led by exports, further emphasize the importance of broad-based agricultural growth. Agricultural development strategy, including effective public investment strategy, has to focus on growth that benefits a majority of farmers. Only such a strategy can be expected to be efficient and effective for growth, poverty reduction, and economic development in general.
http://www.ifpri.org/publication/agricultural-growth-and-investment-options-poverty-reduction-rwanda-0

POVERTY: EU aid for Africa ends up in tax havens, watchdog claims

 David Hencke guardian.co.uk, Thursday 25 November 2010
Claims that hundreds of millions of pounds of EU aid for Africa is being handed over to banks and private equity funds and then funnelled into tax havens.

2010
People queue to get food in Malawi. According to Counter Balance, only €2.8m of a €15m EIB loan to Malawi has been handed out. Photograph: Graeme Robertson

Hundreds of millions of pounds of European Union aid to help the poor in Africa is being handed over without public scrutiny to banks and private equity companies and funnelled into tax havens, a new report claims.
Counter Balance, a group of non-government organisations, has investigated the €1.1bn (£932m) of annual aid from the taxpayer-funded European Investment Bank to Africa and the Caribbean. It alleges that the cash disappeared into African banks, a Luxembourg tax haven and a Nigerian bank whose managing director was under investigation for fraud.
The EIB is able to borrow billions on the markets to fund the aid because it has a triple AAA credit rating. This means Britain and other leading EU economies are underwriting its loans and there is now concern, following the Irish financial crisis, that there could be problems with its lending to Africa.
The report claims that:
•A €50m loan was given to the Intercontinental Bank of Nigeria in 2007 when the MD was under investigation by Nigeria's economic and financial crimes commission – the equivalent of Britain's Serious Fraud Office. The bank was bailed out by the state less than two years later.
•A €15m loan to the National Bank of Malawi was publicised on the EIB's website but never made. The bank thought the EIB had given it to NBS Bank in Malawi — but it had not. It has now "inexplicably" ended up at First Merchant Bank in Malawi, but only €2.8m has been handed out.
• A €7m loan for Gabon and a €5m loan to Rwanda granted more than a year ago have still not been spent.
• Some 60% of EIB's investment in private equity funds for Africa – some €125m – is in one African country, Mauritius, where according to the EIB "the comprehensive regulatory framework favours private sector development".
• Another €4m in private equity investment destined for Angola was given to a company based in Delaware but registered in Luxembourg, a tax haven. Another firm registered in Luxembourg handled a €5m investment for Cameroon and Chad.
The report condemns the EIB for lack of checks and failure to make public what is happening to the cash. "The bank provides next to no information on where this money ends up. This is compounded by the EIB's rigorous protection of its clients' commercial confidentiality as well as the interest of the latter to protect the confidentiality of the ultimate clients benefitting from the loans."
The EIB said the bank had "exemplary transparency and accountability standards". It said: "Working with African financial institutions allows the EIB to pass on specific sector understanding, banking best practice and ensures more effective lending and cheaper financial support for local companies."
The spokesman said that information was held back for commercial reasons. " No bank in the world would release all this information about its clients," he said.
The EIB admitted that there had been confusion about which bank in Malawi had received its cash but said that "we like to spread the money around to different banks".
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/nov/25/european-investment-bank-criticised

POVERTY: Goal Looms for U.N.: Ending ‘Energy Poverty’

ELISABETH ROSENTHAL




Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
A baby receiving a vaccine at a health center in the Bugasera district of Rwanda last month.

Electricity is considered vital to meeting United Nations goals like reducing infant mortality.The United Nations Millennium Development Goals were adopted in 2000 as a commitment to improve health and education as well as end poverty in less fortunate parts of the globe. The eight goals include targets like universal childhood education, reducing infant mortality and ensuring environmental sustainability.
This year there has been a growing movement to add a ninth goal: ending energy poverty. Some 1.4 billion people lack access to electricity. Energy experts like Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency, say that erasing energy poverty should be added because providing people with electricity is often a precondition for solving the eight other problems.
Hospitals without electricity have a hard time keeping vaccines and medicines cold enough or sterilizing equipment properly. If a village lacks electricity to light schools and homes, it is hard for children to do their homework.
In a new report released in part last month during a high-level gathering of the United Nations General Assembly, the International Energy Agency calculated that it would take $36 billion a year for the next 20 years to achieve “universal access to modern energy” by 2030.
That could be accomplished with only a minor bump in global greenhouse emissions because many parts of the world -– principally rural regions not yet connected to an electricity grid –- can best be electrified with renewable energy sources.
An earlier version of this post misstated the amount that the International Energy Agency calculates it would take per year to achieve “universal access to modern energy” by 2030. It is $36 billion, not $36 million.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/04/goal-looms-for-u-n-ending-energy-poverty/

POVERTY: Gaza

A new study has revealed that the population of those living below the poverty line in the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip exceeds the same population in Rwanda. The survey, carried out by the Palestinian Authority (PA), shows that 63.1 percent of the 1.5-million Palestinians in the impoverished coastal sliver, where Tel Aviv's siege has prevented access to food, fuel and other necessities, live below the United Nations-defined poverty line, Press TV's correspondent in the enclave Akram al-Satarri reported on Tuesday. This is while the eastern-central African country has 60 percent of its populace under the poverty level of approximately $0.43 per day. Israel placed Gaza under an all-out blockade in mid-June 2007, claiming it was cracking down on the Palestinian resistance movement, Hamas, which had won democratic elections to rule the strip a year earlier. By enforcing the restrictions, Tel Aviv both disregarded the group's right to power and found an opportunity to impose more suffering on the rest of the Palestinians. "We are talking about the severe economic situation that the Palestinians (are) facing. Because…there is no industrial zones, no job opportunities," said economic analyst, Mohsin Abu Ramadan. "More than 10 percent of Gazans, mostly children, are physically stunted due to malnutrition," Satarri added. The strip is, meanwhile, far from recovering from the full-fledged Israeli war at the turn of 2009, which killed more than 1,400 Palestinians and inflicted a damage of more than $1.6 billion on its economy. Ramadan said that the continuation of the blockade as well as the offensives had "destroyed the infrastructure" of the devastated strip.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/141666.html

POVERTY: Aid and fairer trade crucial to boost Africa's poverty reduction efforts

4 September 2010 – Africans need both foreign aid and fairer trading terms with other regions to achieve the poverty reduction and social development targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) by their 2015 deadline, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon stressed today.
“Far more than that, they need the tools with which they themselves will create jobs, generate income and unleash the continent's own potential,” Mr. Ban said in a message to the two-day Africa Consultative Forum on the MDGs in the Rwandan capital, Kigali.
Mr. Ban said Africa had seen remarkable success in combating hunger, reducing child malnutrition and mortality, improving school enrolment, expanding access to clean water and HIV/AIDS treatment, as well as controlling tuberculosis, malaria and other neglected tropical diseases.
He gave the example of the forum's host, Rwanda, which he said had made impressive efforts in achieving almost universal primary enrolment, including gender parity at the primary school level.
With nearly 60 per cent of children sleeping under insecticide-treated bed nets aimed at keeping out malaria-spreading mosquitoes, the country has registered the largest increase in the use of the nets in Africa, Mr. Ban said in his message, delivered by Jeffrey Sachs, his Senior Adviser on MDGs.
Rwanda also made history in 2008 when the representation of women in parliament reached the highest level in the world, Mr. Ban noted.
Progress has, however, been uneven across the goals, as well as from country to country and within nations, the Secretary-General noted. Moreover, Africa remains the continent facing the most severe challenges in achieving the MDGs, and progress has been especially slow in improving maternal health and reducing maternal mortality, he pointed out.
The MDGs provide concrete benchmarks for tackling extreme poverty and include goals and targets on income poverty, hunger, maternal and child mortality, disease, inadequate shelter, gender inequality and environmental degradation.
Overall, and despite the recent food security crisis and global economic upheaval, the developing world remains on track to halve extreme poverty from 1990 levels by 2015, Mr. Ban said.
“Encouraging progress has also been made in a significant number of least developed countries. This is no small feat; it shows that the MDGs are achievable,” he said.
The high-level summit on the MDGs bringing together nearly 150 world leaders later this month will provide the strong political impetus needed to address the remaining gaps and accelerate progress, the Secretary-General noted.
“For my part, I will continue to press hard for a successful summit. We need the strongest possible outcome document – a results-oriented action plan, with concrete steps and timelines, and with mechanisms for holding all partners accountable.
“The summit will also showcase success stories, with the hope of scaling them up and creating partnerships that will allow us to do even more in Africa and around the world. I will continue to be your close partner in this effort,” Mr. Ban said.
http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=35831&Cr=MDG&Cr1=

POVERTY: Women in Rwanda video and discussion

Why women are economic backbone of Rwanda

http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/africa/07/22/rwanda.women.business/?hpt=C1#fbid=kV4auybDqyq&wom=false

MALARIA: Rwanda: Top down targets and donor-set priorities

The Rwandan government says that the main problem in making better use of existing resources is the development partners.13 In 2006,Rwanda had "$18m earmarked for malaria (the biggest cause of mortality and morbidity) and just $1m for the integrated management ofchildhood illnesses, compared to $47m for HIV/AIDS, grossly disproportionate in a country with a 3% infection rate." The emphasis on HIVmeans that: "physicians employed by NGOs to deliver HIV/AIDS services [are] paid almost six times as much as physicians paid by the[Ministry]. Such differences in salaries make it particularly challenging to keep well qualified health personnel in the public sector."The 2006 government analysis showed that an extra $20 per person could reduce maternal and child mortality to meet internationaltargets. The first $9 were "estimated to deliver three quarters of the reduction in child mortality, and 63% of the reduction in maternalmortality." Scaling up antiretroviral treatment for HIV/AIDS was judged to be the lowest priority, costing an additional $8.30 per person butmaking "little additional contribution to maternal mortality, while the 6% reduction in child mortality [was] achieved at high unit cost."But with foreign non-governmental organisations managing a larger share of total health expenditure than government, such systematiccost-benefit analyses do not influence national spending priorities. By 2008, the US President’s Emergency Plan For AIDS Relief hadinvested about $200m in HIV/AIDS programmes in Rwanda, including scaling up antiretroviral treatment, which remained one of its mainmeasures of success http://wwwbmj.com/cgi/content/full/341/jul16_1/c3651

MALARIA: progress stata

Major efforts are being made to achieve the goals for malaria control set by the World Health Assembly1 and the Roll Back Malaria partnership,2 including halving the malaria burden by the end of 2010 compared with 2000. Particularly encouraging is the progress in availability of long lasting insecticide treated mosquito nets. In Africa alone, 140 million nets were distributed between 2006 and 2008.3
These efforts, coupled with targeted application of indoor residual spraying and modest increases in access to artemisinin based combination therapy, have begun to produce results. In countries where these malaria control interventions have been scaled up, such as Eritrea, São Tomé and Principe, Rwanda, Zambia, and Zanzibar (Tanzania), rates of malaria cases, hospital admissions, and deaths have dropped by more than 50%.3 In São Tomé and Principe and Zanzibar, these gains have been mirrored by a greater than 50% fall in all-cause hospital admissions
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/340/jun11_1/c2714