NGO Partners

Today is HIV Vaccine Awareness Day!

May 18th, 2009 3:47 PM UTC
By ONE Partners

Did you know – despite everything we’ve learned about HIV, the number of new infections each year is close to what it was in the mid-1990s: the total figure today is 2.7 million? Antiretroviral treatment (ART) helps keep HIV at low levels within the body, but ART can have side effects and must be taken every day for a lifetime. What’s more, access to life-saving treatment can be an issue for people living with HIV in developing countries. Thanks to programs like the Global Fund and PEPFAR, treatment is increasingly available, but it still only reaches a third of people who need it to survive.

We must continue to extend current prevention, care and treatment options to as many people as possible to mitigate AIDS here and now, but we must also invest in the future to bring the epidemic to an end. Continued investment in prevention research, to include new tools like vaccines, microbicides and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), will produce net savings in the long term – and save lives.

In fact, only vaccines have historically ended major viral epidemics. They are proven to be cost-effective and practical. There will be an AIDS vaccine in our lifetime, and we must continue the search.

So today, on HIV Vaccine Awareness Day, I urge you to become informed about AIDS vaccine research. We all have a role to play whether it is as advocates, volunteers, health professionals or researchers.

• Checkout NIAID’s information hub around HIV Vaccine Awareness Day
• The International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) has a new website, which features an interview with Dr Anthony S. Fauci (Director, NIAID)
• Global Health TV recently posted four interviews with leading AIDS advocates about their commitment to finding an AIDS vaccine
• IAVI President & CEO, Seth Berkley, recently gave a talk at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) as part of their Global Health Policy Center’s speaker series

For those of you reading this blog who are already involved – today (and every day) is an opportunity to say thank you!

-Nicole Schiegg, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative–Washington, D.C.

Defeating a Global Killer

May 12th, 2009 8:55 AM UTC
By ONE Partners

Diarrheal disease is a leading killer of children under age five worldwide, responsible for the deaths of nearly 1.6 million children annually.

Are you surprised? If so, I understand why. Diarrhea is a hard thing to talk about and most of us aren’t dying from it. At best it is the subject of unfortunate jokes and at worst usually an infrequent symptom of a passing stomach virus. But there are children in the U.S. who still die from it and there are far more avoidable deaths from diarrhea around the world.

In fact, diarrheal disease is commonplace in Africa and Asia, as Nicolas Kristof and student contest winner Paul Bowers note in their recent Facebook and NYT blog posts. But it doesn’t have to be commonplace. The global health community knows what is necessary to prevent and treat diarrheal disease – there just isn’t adequate attention and funding to bring this knowledge and the tools to those who need it most.

Yesterday, PATH along with over 80 supporting organizations announced a call to action to encourage our peers in the health, development, environmental, water/sanitation, and research communities to push for adequate funding of the proven interventions that prevent and treat diarrheal disease.

This call to action comes on the heels of the releases of Diarrheal Disease: Solutions to Defeat a Global Killer from PATH and Fatal Neglect: How Health Systems are Failing to Comprehensively Address Child Mortality from WaterAid America which both highlight the urgent need to refocus attention on diarrheal disease. You can be part of the call to action too. Please take a few minutes to check these reports out at www.path.org and www.wateraidamerica.org.

-Dr. John Wecker, Immunization Solutions Program and Rotavirus Vaccine Program, PATH

World Pneumonia Day?

May 12th, 2009 8:54 AM UTC
By ONE Partners

Last month, to celebrate World Health Day, a group of organizations and activists launched an effort to encourage the United Nations to declare November 2nd as World Pneumonia Day. Pneumonia which is the leading killer of children around the world taking upwards of 2 million lives of children under 5 every year is rarely discussed in the media as a childhood killer and is often thought of only as a disease of the elderly. In communities around the world, it is often unrecognized and untreated – and simple cases become more severe and more costly to treat. Save the Children Artist Ambassador, Hugh Laurie, commented, “I work on a TV show that features the unusual, the bizarre, the unique. But the cases on House are brightly-colored minnows compared to the leviathan of pneumonia. It’s so big, you couldn’t make a TV show about it. But you could change it. So could I. We can and must change it.”

There is good news on pneumonia on both the prevention and treatment fronts. The advent of new and not so new vaccines being increasingly integrated into immunization programs around the world is critical. GAVI is at the forefront of promoting the integration of these newer vaccines which are effective against two of the leading causes of pneumonia. And, on the treatment side, the increasing recognition of community health workers as a key component of the strategy to more quickly diagnose and provide antibiotic treatment for cases of pneumonia when they do occur is vital to reducing pneumonia deaths. These prevention and treatment efforts have the potential to dramatically cut pneumonia deaths around the
world.

If you want to see the devastating effect of pneumonia on a young child and the simple solution, you can click on the link below to see the story of Karunesh, an Ethiopian infant, lucky enough to have a dedicated and trained community health worker near her village. And Karunesh’s story is just one of thousands of children’s whose lives are being saved thanks to simple diagnosis and treatment protocols that are being integrated into the training of community health workers in numerous countries around the world.

Finally, the coalition of pneumonia fighters has some new allies – Hedgefunds against Malaria has now become Hedgefunds against Malaria and Pneumonia and they are educating their membership and friends about the toll of these diseases.

More information about pneumonia and the work of organizations trying to stop it dead in its tracks is available at www.worldpneumoniaday.org

-Mary Beth Powers, Survive to 5 Campaign Chief, Save the Children USA

HIV Vaccine Awareness Day is May 18th

May 11th, 2009 8:50 AM UTC
By ONE Partners

Here’s a little known fact. Hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic, developing countries are also hard at work on new tools to prevent HIV. Those who bear the biggest burden of the AIDS pandemic are doing their part to ensure that we have a vaccine for future generations. HIV Vaccine Awareness Day is an occasion to thank the thousands of volunteers, community members, health professionals, and scientists who are working together to find a safe and effective AIDS vaccine. It is also an opportunity to underscore that supporting science and technology are core elements of good development policy.

Dr. Seth Berkley, IAVI’s President and CEO, blogged yesterday “that the Obama administration should extend its fervor for science to its foreign aid policy, putting science and technology at the heart of U.S. assistance to the developing world.” The full post can be found here.

For those of you in the Washington, DC area today, May 11th please come listen to leading African scientists talk about the novel research they are doing to help advance AIDS vaccine science. The Global Health Council, the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI) and the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) are co hosting a congressional briefing on Capitol Hill at 2 PM in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room 419. For more information, please contact: Sara Jane Muratori at smuratori@iavi.org.

If you are not in DC, please checkout Global Health TV. Leading AIDS advocates share their commitment to finding a vaccine: Dr David Kihumuro Apuuli, director-general of the Uganda AIDS Commission and Dr Seth Berkley, IAVI. Additional interviews will be posted leading up to HIV Vaccine Awareness Day.

-Nicole Schiegg, International AIDS Vaccine Initiative – Washington, DC

How to Avoid a Renewed Debt Crisis in Africa

May 5th, 2009 8:31 AM UTC
By Margaret McDonnell

I recently attended a very interesting congressional briefing titled “The Global Financial Crisis and Africa: How to Avoid a Renewed Debt Crisis?” hosted by partner organizations Jubilee USA Network, the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, the American Jewish World Service and the Episcopal Church. The conversation focused around how to preserve the achievements that many African countries have made over the last five or so years (with help from debt relief and increased trade) in light of the current global financial crisis. One of the measures suggested was that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) direct revenue from its upcoming gold reserve sales to developing countries.

As explained by Matthew Martin, Director of Debt Relief International, countries freed from odious debt have been able to invest in national poverty-fighting strategies such as lowering the barriers to healthcare and education by reducing user fees and improving infrastructure. In turn, debt relief empowers countries to be less dependent on foreign assistance in the future. Hon. Timothy Thahane, Minister of Finance and Development Planning for Lesotho, shared how when Lesotho received debt relief from the United Kingdom, they immediately redirected monies previously spent on debt relief service to vulnerable populations by providing free primary education, school feeding programs, and antiretroviral drugs for persons living with HIV/AIDS.

All this was somberly put into context when Thahane explained that the gains in employment and revenue due to debt relief and increased trade vis-à-vis the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), are currently threatened by the global financial crisis. The World Bank has estimated that an additional 53 million people will be forced to live on less than $1 per day as a result of the global economic downturn. The decline in commodity prices, remittances, and demand for exports has already had a dramatic effect throughout the continent. For example, the downward trend of car manufacturing in the U.S. has led to a significant decline in steel exports, which has impacted steel-producing African countries such as Guinea, Liberia and South Africa. Similarly, the sudden decline in demand for textile exports, led to a loss of 12,000 jobs in Lesotho, which impacts 40,000-50,000 lives.

Vitalis Meja, Program Director of African Network on Debt and Development (Afrodad) warned that the economic situation will make it very difficult for African countries to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and called on donor countries to resist reducing Official Development Assistance (ODA). Meja called for the reform of lending practices and joined the other panelists in asking the IMF to allocate revenue from its gold sales for debt relief and grants for the world’s poorest countries, which would help them weather the current economic crisis and avoid falling back into another debt crisis. Lesotho would be one of the countries that would directly benefits.

More information about the IMF gold sales and its potential to help low-income countries can be found in briefings prepared by ONE and Jubilee USA.

-Margaret McDonnell, US NGO Partnerships & Faith Relations Team

Celebrating Mother’s Day In A Meaningful Way

May 4th, 2009 8:26 AM UTC
By ONE Partners

With Mother’s Day coming up, I’ve been thinking more about the heroic mothers I met on a recent trip to Ghana and Uganda. They shared with me how they were using loans from Opportunity International to build businesses that provided income to send their children to school, put nutritious food on the table, buy or improve their homes and even put money away for the future. Many of them care for AIDS orphans, employ their neighbors and take on leadership roles in their communities.

I’d like to introduce you to a special woman I met in Ghana. Rose Adjei is 39 and married with two children. She was Opportunity’s first client in her community, forming a Trust Group of 26 other women living in poverty who wanted to start businesses. (Visit http://www.optinnow.org for more information on this lending methodology.) With her first loan of $25 in 1998, Rose started selling groceries on a tabletop. Today, she is the proud owner of a grocery store and a Kente products shop, and employs seven young men to weave the kente cloth. She is repaying her 14th loan from Opportunity, this one for almost $2,000. With proceeds from her business, Rose has been able to send her children to the best schools in her area.

Rose Ajdei, an Opportunity International client, at Rose’s shop in Bonwire Ghana.

I invite you to visit OptINnow to learn more about Opportunity’s women clients, their businesses and their communities. There, you also can check out the heartwarming Global Opportunity Quilt sponsored by the Women’s Opportunity Network. This Mother’s Day, I’m purchasing tribute patches on the virtual quilt to honor special women in my life and to give a hand-up to women who need it the most. I can choose from several beautiful Mother’s Day patches by artist Dawn Feller, and then write a tribute that can be read by everyone visiting the virtual quilt. Each woman I honor receives an email with a link to view the quilt plus a gift card that can be used to help another woman with a life-changing loan at OptINnow. It’s fun to visit the quilt (I must admit…I do it several times daily) to see all the wonderful messages that have been posted.

Happy Mother’s Day to all the women in the world who make a difference!

-Ruth-Anne Renaud, Vice President of Women’s Philanthropy, Opportunity International, rarenaud@opportunity.org

Global Opportunity Quilt created by the Women’s Opportunity Network and you at www.optinnow.org/quilt

Preparing for Vaccines: African Scientists Speak Out

Apr 25th, 2009 1:06 PM UTC
By Lisa.Fleisher

The PATH Malaria Vaccine Initiative created a video that highlights the need to start preparing now for a malaria vaccine. African scientists share their thoughts on the science behind malaria vaccine development and the need to link research with policy to speed decisionmaking and ultimately, getting medicines to those in need.

-Lisa K. Fleisher

WOZA at ONE

Apr 2nd, 2009 10:13 AM UTC
By Chris Scott

Thanks to Amnesty International USA, last week I and some other ONE staff got the chance to meet with two extraordinary women from the organization Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA). Formed in 2003 by Jenni Williams, WOZA now has a membership of over 70,000 women (and men) and has truly become a grassroots force to be reckoned with.

The idea behind WOZA, as Jenni Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu stressed, is to give ordinary women in Zimbabwe the power to mobilize and take nonviolent action against injustices. Unfortunately, the right to mobilize—something we as ONE members often take for granted—is regularly stifled in Zimbabwe by a police force who, according to Ms. Williams, have become agents of the ruling party rather than an independent and non-partisan organization. Both Ms. Williams and Ms. Mahlangu have spent time in custody for exercising WOZA’s ability to organize and peacefully protest.

Both women spoke at length about some of the crushing social and systemic crises currently afflicting Zimbabwe, including a collapsing economy, healthcare system and a disintegrating—nearly nonexistent now—educational system. The children that are fortunate enough to live near an open and staffed school have to bring their own chair and chalk to school and basic medicines, including pain killers, are no longer available in many hospitals. As these problems mount, the Zimbabwe government continues to subvert the will of the people, making a stark divide between wealthy politicians and impoverished citizens.

It was fascinating and enlightening to hear Ms. Williams and Ms. Maglangu speak not only about their on-the-ground, personal experiences living in Zimbabwe, but also their efforts to mount a massive coalition of ordinary Zimbabwe citizens to speak out against the Zimbabwe government. They are truly living up to the mission of WOZA, which means “come forward” in Ndebele.

To learn more about WOZA and their ongoing campaigns, check out: www.amnestyusa.org/woza and http://www.amnesty.org.uk/actions_details.asp?ActionID=364.

-Chris Scott, ONE

Fall in Love with Fair Trade Certified

Feb 12th, 2009 1:42 PM UTC
By Tyler Douse

Hey, if you’re already planning to buy any chocolate, flowers, or wine for Valentines Day, consider buying Fair Trade. Check out this note we got from TransFair USA below.

-Margaret McDonnell, ONE NGO Partnership Coordinator

This Valentine’s Day, it is easier than ever to show someone you care with gifts that benefit farming communities around the world. Fair Trade Certified flowers, chocolate and now wine are available in retailers nationwide and online.

Fair Trade Certified flowers are already helping ensure that flower workers like Nancy Segovia of Agrogandera, a flower plantation in southern Ecuador, receive fair wages, a safe work environment, paid vacation, maternity and sick leave and access to child care.

Fair Trade Certified cocoa is helping the farmers of the Kavokiva cooperative in the Ivory Coast to fund scholarships and school supplies for members children, build a healthcare center and establish a women’s literacy program.

Fair Trade Certified wine is helping wine producers like Marie Malan to move from her previous position as a domestic servant to the esteemed position of Farm Manager at Stellar Organics, an award winning organic vineyard in South Africa.

By choosing Fair Trade Certified products you are directly supporting a better life for farming families through fair prices and just labor conditions, direct trade, community development and environmentally sustainable farming practices.

This Valentine’s Day, pledge to make all of your purchases Fair Trade Certified and encourage your family and friends to do the same. As a special bonus, our friends at 1-800-Flowers are offering 15% off your next purchase of a Fair Trade Certified bouquet to everyone who takes the pledge. Forward this message to family and friends and they can receive the gift too. To take the Fair Trade Valentine’s Day pledge and forward a beautiful Valentine’s Day eCard to your loved ones, click here.

To find out more about where you can find Fair Trade Certified flowers, chocolate and wine in stores and online please visit our beautiful “Fall in Love with Fair Trade” website.

Thank you and Happy Valentine’s Day!

-James Guzzi, TransFair USA

In Poznan

Dec 17th, 2008 2:25 PM UTC
By ONE Partners

Last week over 10,000 people from more than 160 countries gathered in the old industrial town of Poznan, Poland to try to advance talks for a global treaty on climate change. But at the UN climate change conference, which ended in the wee hours of the morning Saturday, negotiators didn’t shown the urgency and political will needed to fight climate change and keep millions of people safe.

Global warming threatens the lives and livelihoods of millions – if not billions – of people. The poorest, most vulnerable communities are being affected directly – first and worst – despite being least responsible for the crisis.

Already, the impacts of climate change are making their mark. In Bangladesh, increased floods are washing away homes and crops, while changing weather patterns in Uganda mean farmers are gambling with to sow seeds, risking having them wash away in torrential rains or dry up in drought. And it’s only going to get worse. Across Africa, 75 million to 250 million people could face severe water shortages by 2020. Action is needed now.

Developed countries, those most responsible for climate change, arrived in Poland empty-handed and unwilling to engage in constructive discussions to move further towards a global deal in Copenhagen next December. Poor countries put forward important proposals, including Mexico’s bold announcement of plans to halve its emissions by 2050. But the EU, Australia and others seemed asleep at the wheel.

Some important progress on the Adaptation Fund, which was created to help vulnerable communities adapt to climate change, was achieved, but this is only a small part of the overall solution that poor people require.

A deal in Copenhagen next December is still possible, and more urgent and necessary than ever. In the coming year, developed countries must stop floundering and demonstrate commitment and leadership at the highest levels. Let’s tell them to get busy soon!

-Laura Rusu, Oxfam America