The INFO Project Blog

When the leaders of the G8, a group of 8 industrailzed nations (the G8 includes Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States) meet July 7-9 in Hokkaido for their annual summit  global health will be on the agenda!  Leaders discuss setting targets to tackle the world’s growing shortage of health workers. 

Japan, as host of the July 7-9 summit, is particularly pushing for G-8 cooperation to promote universal access to reproductive health services and increased birth attendance by skilled attendants in Africa to 75 percent in five years to drive forward the U.N. Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs, the sources said. - Associated Press

Leaders of the G8 said that they will discuss ways to increase global cooperation to achieve the MDGs and to discuss ways to increase effectiveness of aid delivery.

Recently I was introduced to a fabulous new tool designed to combat HIV/AIDS related stigma.  “Pos-or-not” sponsored by MTV Networks is a game of sorts that allows user to decide if a man or woman is HIV+ based solely upon his or her looks and a brief description of their personality.  The site was designed to show individuals that there is no way an someone can tell if an inidividual is HIV positive or not based upon their looks.  The site was based upon the “Hot or Not” site, where users decide if a picture of someone presented is hot or “not” (hot).

Egypt’s Health Minister Hatem el-Gabali announced an $80 million USD family planning campaign last week with the slogan “two children per family - a chance for a better life.” Since Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has come to power he has urged Egyptian families to plan their families and have fewer children.

Mubarak has stated that at current growth rates the population of Egypt will double by the year 2050 in the absence of increased uptake of family planning. Egypt is the 16th most populous country in the world, according to the CIA.

Laili Irani, a program specialist at the INFO Project, was recently tasked with researching new findings in reproductive health that came out since the publication of Family Planning: A Global Handbook for Providers. After going through hundreds of pages of research she had this to say about a recently released literature synthesis from the Cochrane Review.

One of the best sythesis I found on emergency contraception–a hot topic in reproductive health–was the recently published literature review from the Cochrane Review.

The review showed that mifepristone and levonorgestrel are very effective methods of emergency contraception with few adverse effects. Emergency contraception (EC) is a method of preventing pregnancy after unprotected sex. 81 randomized controlled clinical trials with 45,842 women were included in the Cochrane Review summary, with most trials conducted in China (70 out of 81 studies). The report notes that copper intrauterine devices can also be used 5 days after unprotected intercourse to prevent pregnancy , along with providing ongoing protection against future pregnancy if left in place. Read the rest of this entry »

If there’s ever a Mount Rushmore memorial built to honor heroes of family planning, the granite rock faces should be chisled with the features of community health workers like the women in pink, at left.

This woman, who works in a remote village in Rajasthan, India, promotes the use of family planning, educates families about HIV/AIDS, and encourages girls to go to school. The Veerni Project, a women’s empowerment group, trained her and other mostly-volunteer ”promoters” in each village.

I was reminded of these brave women, whose energetic work I observed while working with the Veerni Project a few years ago, in doing research for the upcoming issue of Population Reports, Elements of Successful Family Planning Programs. One key element of many successful programs? A mix of contraceptive service delivery points, facilitated by community agents like Veerni’s promoters.

In the case of CARE’s Extra Mile Initiative (EMI), which took place in eastern Madagascar–dubbed “the eight continent” for its rich biodiversity–community health agents overcame obstacles including flooded rivers and roadless districts to teach community members about methods to space their childrens’ births and limit family size. They were also tasked with training health center staff and local politicians. According to the Case Study, “the project’s very name indicated the additional effort CARE would need to invest just to reach the six communes–by motocycle, canoe and, mostly, on foot.” Luckily, the agents were cheerfully good-humored about the challenges, recounting storise like Mr. Boutobé’s:

In roadless Ambahoabe commune… the SDC [Social Development Committee] organized residents of the commune seat to smooth out nearly five miles of trail so that field agent Sebastian Boutobé could reach them by motorcycle, rather than on foot… “[My motorcycle] made such an impression,” [Sebastian] says, “that some people named their babies Sebastian in honor of the event.”

Others crossed flooded rivers, like Mac Samuel, who remembered at one point, while he was trying to reach a remote area, ”we were up to our necks.”
Read the rest of this entry »