Defining and tracking the meaning of progress is an old challenge. From time immemorial people have been aware that money is merely a means – and not a goal of its own.
We know that apart from income, other important parts of life provide meaning for people. Some are difficult to quantify, but this does not make them any less relevant. Unfortunately, people tend to forget the obvious. For decades mainstream policy thinking was hijacked by a different paradigm – one built around the assumption material gain translated into human development and happiness. (more…)
To mark World Day for Safety and Health at Work, we accompanied Fatma Terlik, health and safety focal point for the UNDP Partnership for the Future Programme in Cyprus, as she toured various on-going construction sites.
With more than 55 civil works contracts awarded in the past five years – ranging from 10,000 to 25 million euros each – and approximately 800 workers employed – health and safety quickly became a priority issue for UNDP in Cyprus. Fatma’s site inspections are all-encompassing, as she inspects personal protection equipment, scaffolding, emergency situation plans, first aid, manual handling and tools to make sure they meet standards.
Educating young people to be healthy has always been a top priority for educational institutions, but it’s even more important for health promoting schools.
A health promoting school strives to be a healthy example for living, learning and working, like school №4 in Novograd-Volynskiy of the Zhytomyr region.
A school building itself influences the health of students and teachers, and school №4 was built 30 years ago, and as it often happens, the infrastructure of the building hasn’t been upgraded since. When you use something for such a long time without repairing it (especially sewage systems), problems appear. Some toilets stopped working, there were long lines for the restrooms during breaks, and around lunchtime, a bad smell started to spread in the corridors.
The school principal’s Valentyna Silvertyuk said it had a negative impact on the students’ physical and mental health.
From my childhood I remember how my mother was excited when someone arrived from the countryside with food (in the communist years there was a problem with supply in general and having a family in the countryside was a guarantee of such goodies as fresh lettuce, tomatoes and potatoes). Theoretically, today access to food products shouldn’t be a problem while we have malls on every corner. The question though: is it the same food?
What are food cooperatives and how do they perceive their work?
Food cooperatives are initiatives of consumers who want to build a fair, democratic and ecological economy. They want to eat healthy food for a fair price. A cooperative is not a shop where you can go, choose products, pay and leave. It’s a kind of community committed to building a network of clients and producers for mutual benefit.
According to an agreement of countries in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) to cooperate on labour migration and social protection of migrant workers (from 1994), medical services in the host country are provided to migrant workers at the expense of the employer.
Migrant workers working in the informal sector or those with informal job are not included in this agreement because they don’t have a regular employment contract; employers hire them informally and as a consequence do not pay for their medical insurance. Therefore informally employed migrant workers don’t have access to healthcare benefits when they are working in Russia or in any other CIS country.
I was recently sifting through last year’s pictures and reports of our UNDP-Global Fund HIV project and I was amazed to see the progress we made and the people we were able to help in a short period of time.
And the numbers tell the same story:
Over 24,000 people of the most-at-risk populations from all regions benefited from HIV care, prevention, and support services and advocacy aimed at reducing high risk behaviour.
Over 31,000 young people received HIV prevention services provided by peer educators.
More than 3,800 people living with HIV received antiretroviral therapy and 210 specialists received basic and advanced training in antiretroviral therapy
Ministry of Health in Montenegro working towards improved patient rights
Have you ever been in a position where medical services have been refused or delayed because an under-the-counter payment was necessary? Were you given the cold shoulder by your doctor? Has there been a shortage of hospital beds, or scarcity of information about your condition?
There may still be lingering disputes over the legal definition of corruption, but one thing’s for sure: corruption is painfully easy to define once it becomes personal.
While 80 percent of patients were satisfied with the course of the primary health care (centres) reform, the reform at the secondary and tertiary levels (hospitals) hadn’t fared so well. It seems that doctors at primary level of care forged better relationships with their patients, due to a more thorough insight into personal histories and medical records.
As the last region to hold its Preparatory Meeting for the Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development, the United Nations Commission for Europe (UNECE) region is a bit of a test case for the global debate since it includes low, medium, and high-income countries. For the first two days of December, 350 representatives of governments, academic experts, United Nations, civil society and business organizations exchanged their proposals for what will come out of the meeting in Rio de Janeiro. (See: speech of UNDP regional deputy director Jens Wandel – well worth the read.)
What is at stake?
This regional debate touches the heart of the development conundrum. Daniel Ziegerer of Switzerland described the issue as the intersection between economic development, social justice and environmental protection. We at UNDP asked the question: is fossil fuel driven growth, which leaves a large gap between rich and poor, human development? Joachim Spangenberg put it this way: how do we look at two key questions: How do you transform economic advancement into something about humans rather than profit? And how do we imagine economic growth within the framework of actual planetary constraints?
These amazing lads will be with you for all of tomorrow (December 1st) - World Aids Day – tweeting and replying to your tweets on issues related to HIV/AIDS in Eastern Europe, Caucasus andCentral Asia (follow them at @UNDP_Europe_CIS)
They both work for our HIV, health and development team that seeks to promote and protect the rights of key populations such as injecting drug users, sex workers and men who have sex with men. The team also works to help national health systems mitigate the effects of HIV, tuberculosis and other health challenges.
Dudley Tarlton
Dudley works with countries in Europe andCentral Asia to promote sustainable financing for HIV treatment and the enforcement of laws that protect people living with HIV.
John Macauley
John has been working on HIV, health and development issues in Eastern Europe andCentral Asia since 2004. He currently focuses on the identification and dissemination of good practices.
The European/Central Asian region has the highest rate of multi-drug- and extensively-drug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR and XDR TB respectively, in practitioner’s jargon) in the world. According to WHO, there are currently an estimated 81,000 people with MDR or XDR TB in the region. Most of them do not receive a proper diagnosis and treatment.
At the national level, health systems often do not have enough capacity to identify and treat cases. The situation is further worsened by the substantial amount of (partially illegal) labor migration in the region. Moving to another country means that diagnoses get hidden or delayed and treatment interrupted.
Drug resistant TB is not purely a health issue. It has economic repercussions as well. Compare the costs of just a few Euro for a normal TB treatment course with thousands of Euro per person for all costs related to dealing with drug-resistant TB. WHO is estimating that we need to invest US $ 5.2 billion over the next 5 years for a reasonable action plan; without it, the final bill will be definitely larger.
Ultimately however at the core of this problem are social determinants of health and inequitable access to health services.
For the above reasons, I welcome next week’s high-level meeting on “Migration and tuberculosis: cross border care and control in Central Asia” in Almaty. I am looking forward to reviewing the outcomes of the meeting and, perhaps most importantly, to helping with the implementation plan coming out of the event. Watch this space for updates.
