UNICEF – Community case management of diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia

Community case management of diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia: Tracking science to policy and practice in sub-Saharan Africa, 2012.

• Full text, pdf

UNICEF

Community case management (CCM) increases access to treatment to those beyond the reach of health facilities and has the potential to more equitably address the three largest causes of child mortality in sub-Saharan Africa: diarrhea, malaria and pneumonia.

Based on data from UNICEF country offices, we provide a profile of government policies and implementation of CCM diarrhea, pneumonia, and malaria for sick children aged 2 months-5 years across sub-Saharan Africa in 2010. This offers an aggregated analysis and disaggregated tables for subSaharan Africa and where possible we explain the status of outliers based on correspondence with UNICEF country offices. We also compare our findings with previous data collected by Countdown 2015 to describe trends in CCM pneumonia policy and implementation for sub-Saharan Africa. The following bullet points represent key findings.

• The majority of governments in sub-Saharan Africa have policies supporting CCM of diarrhea, malaria or pneumonia, yet important exceptions remain. Moreover, even when supportive CCM policies exist, CCM programs are not always implemented, and far fewer are implemented at scale.
• Even as CCM pneumonia lags the furthest behind, significant change has occurred. The number of countries in sub-Saharan Africa with supportive CCM pneumonia policies has more than doubled since 2005.
  

Updates from the Sanitation Marketing Community of Practice

The Sanitation Marketing Community of Practice – an initiative of the Australian WASH Reference Group and managed by WaterAid Australia. Below are 2 new announcements. 

1 – Yolande Coombes, WSP is available to answer SanMark questions
The Sanitation Marketing Community of Practice is very excited to have Yolande Coombes as our new resident guest expert. Yolande will be available in January 2013 to answer any SanMark practitioner questions. Questions can be submitted via the Sanitation Marketing website.
Be sure to include a brief description of your project and context. Questions, answers and comments will be posted on the website for peer to peer learning.

Yolande Coombes has more than 20 years experience in public health, behaviour change and evaluation. She gained her PhD in Public Health from the University of London. She has held academic positions at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and College of Medicine in Malawi. As a consultant she has worked on topics on a number of communicable and non-communicable diseases. She has worked for both Population Services International and Marie Stopes International providing technical social marketing, behaviour change, franchising and M&E support. In 2007 she took up a position as a specialist consultant in sanitation marketing and hygiene with WSP and became a staff member in 2010 responsible for leading WSP’s sanitation and hygiene work in Africa, including task managing the AfricaSan 3 conference in 2011.

Q&A: Making Toilets Fashionable

Q&A: Making Toilets Fashionable | Source: IPS News, Dec 10, 2012 |
Fatima Asmal-Motala interviews JACK SIM, founder of the World Toilet Organisation

DURBAN, South Africa, Dec 10 2012 (IPS) – When the founder of the World Toilet Organisation Jack Sim turned 40, he literally began counting how many more days he had to live and felt a sense of urgency to do meaningful things with the remainder of his life.

Founder of the World Toilet Organisation Jack Sim says that on the African continent there has been some progress in terms of the community-led total sanitation approach. Courtesy: Meropa Communications

“Can you imagine a person coming into this world and spending his life only helping himself? When this person dies, his life has had no meaning, so why did he bother coming here?” he asks.

A successful businessman, Sim turned his attention to an area which he felt was severely neglected.

Webinar: WASH in Schools, 13 December 2012

Webinar: WASH in Schools

National Policy Changed by WASH in Schools Research

Date: Thursday 13 December 2012

Time: 14:30 – 15:30 CET (Central European Time)
19:00 – 20:00 New Delhi
16:30 – 17:30 Nairobi
08:30 – 09:30 New York

Presenters:

Mamita Bora Thakkar, UNICEF India
Brooks Keene and Jason Oyugi, CARE

Whether you like it or not, governments have a role to play in effective implementation of WASH in Schools programmes. This webinar will explore how national policy is influenced by the work of UNICEF in India and SWASH+ in Kenya.

Combining experiences in Kenya and India, the webinar aims to do three things:

• examine how UNICEF India supports the Indian government in identifying and overcoming obstacles that prevent the achievement of sustainable WASH in Schools
• explore how the SWASH+ research helped change the national policy on school WASH in Kenya
  
• provide insights into how best to track progress and results.

Register here: https://www4.gotomeeting.com/register/428349031

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Space is limited so please reserve your Webinar seat on time if you want to participate.

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Contact organisers

Ingeborg Krukkert, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre
Krukkert@irc.nl

Malaika Cheney-Choker, CARE USA
mcheneycoker@care.org

Publication of the Study on Fecal Sludge Management in Africa and Asia

The study presented in October through the blog post: “Fecal Sludge Management: A smelly but fruitful business”, is now available.

The study was funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and is entitled “Business analysis of fecal sludge management: emptying and transportation services in Africa and Asia”. The purpose of the study is to analyse the fecal sludge management (FSM) sector and its operating models in 30 cities across 10 countries. 2.1 billion people in urban centres use non-piped sanitation facilities and unavoidably require the emptying of fecal sludge (see picture below). Mismanagement of FSM represents a serious threat to public health and the environment.

The study also aims at filling the important information gaps on this business sector, which is often unregulated and leads to situations where households pay excessive fees for these services or are compelled to undertake emptying manually exposing themselves to serious health hazards.

Chowdhry, S. and Kone, D., 2012. Business analysis of fecal sludge management : emptying and transportation services in Africa and Asia. Seattle, WA, USA: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. 116 p.; 47 fig.; 22 tab. With bibliography  p. 115-116
Available at: <http://www.washdoc.info/docsearch/title/179741>

By Pascal B. Garde, Consultant, WASH Policy and Governance, @GardePascal

Financing sanitation in Sub-Saharan Africa

Reblogged from WASH Resources:

This guide provides highly practical decision-making tools for identifying the type of financing mechanisms to be implemented for on-site sanitation and small-piped sewerage systems.

The authors caution that the costs provided in the publication are for illustrative purposes only and do not reflect the wide variety of situations and practices encountered in the different countries
in sub-Saharan Africa.

The guide is organized into five chapters:

Read more… 224 more words

Conference explores faecal sludge management, a key link to up-scaling sanitation

Getting ready to access the pit for emptying, eThekwini , South Africa. Photo: Elisabeth von Muench, SuSanA

Since many experts believe that flush toilets and sewerage are unaffordable for the large majority urban and rural communities, faecal sludge management (FSM) is seen as a key link to up-scaling sanitation.

But do we need to reinvent the toilet or invent a sanitation industry? That was the concluding thought of Water for People’s Steven Sugden, one of the 100 or so presenters at the Second International Faecal Sludge Management conference (FSM2). Looking at all the presentations, the impression you get is that we need both better technologies and better business models.

FSM2 ook place in Durban, South Africa from 29-31 October 2012. The conference was structured around the following themes:

• On-site Sanitation as a Business
• Socio-political Aspects of On-site Sanitation
• Understanding On-site Sanitation
• Toilet Design for FSM Optimisation
• Pit Emptying – What are the Options?
• The How of Faecal Sludge Treatment
• Waste Not Want Not – Beneficial Use of Faecal Sludges
• Technology and Innovation
• Health Aspects of Faecal Sludges

All the presentations are available on the SuSanA website.

The Public Toilet – interactive sculpture launch on World Toilet Day

This Saturday a four and a half metre tall squatting man will appear beside London’s Tower Bridge. The artists’ collective greyworld has created this huge interactive sculpture called The Public Toilet for World Toilet Day.

With a screen on the face of the statue, the public can show their support for World Toilet Day by uploading a short five second video (or photo) of their face via www.thepublictoilet.com. The videos are then streamed onto the statue’s face and shown on the website.

Unilever’s hygiene brand Domestos and the World Toilet Organization (WTO) commissioned The Public Toilet, to symbolise the plight of 2.5 billion people who don’t have access to improved sanitation, of whom 1.1 billion are forced to practise open defecation.

The Gendered Nature of Schooling in Ghana: Hurdles to Girls’ Menstrual Management in School

JENdA: Journal of Culture and African Women Studies, (20) 2012

The Gendered Nature of Schooling in Ghana: Hurdles to Girls’ Menstrual Management in School

Marni Sommer, Nana Mokoah Ackatia-Armah

Read the full article (subscription required) at: www.africaknowledgeproject.org/index.php/jenda/article/view/1578

View the table of the contents of the whole issue at:
www.africaknowledgeproject.org/index.php/jenda/issue/view/137

This article explores girls’ voiced experiences of menstruation and schooling in rural and urban Ghana. The study was conducted in the Greater Accra Region (rural and urban) and the Tamale-Tolon-Kumbungu Districts of Northern Ghana. These regions are predominantly populated by the Ga-Dangme, and the Dagbani. The major aim of the study was to better understand the intersection of menarche, menstrual management and schooling for pubescent girls in Ghana, in order to adapt a Tanzania’s girl’s puberty book to the Ghana context.

The methodology included a comparative case study using participatory research with adolescent girls in and out of school. The research highlighted the significant gap in girls’ understandings around menstrual onset and overall pubertal body changes, along with aspects of the school physical and social environment that create barriers to girls’ successful attendance and participation during monthly menses. The findings highlight the importance of girl-focused approaches to developing guidance for healthy transitions through puberty.

Sanitary Pad Interventions for Girls’ Education in Ghana: A Pilot Study

PLoS ONE, Oct 2012.

Sanitary Pad Interventions for Girls’ Education in Ghana: A Pilot Study

• Full text

Paul Montgomery, et al.

Background – Increased education of girls in developing contexts is associated with a number of important positive health, social, and economic outcomes for a community. The event of menarche tends to coincide with girls’ transitions from primary to secondary education and may constitute a barrier for continued school attendance and performance. Following the MRC Framework for Complex Interventions, a pilot controlled study was conducted in Ghana to assess the role of sanitary pads in girls’ education.

Methods – A sample of 120 schoolgirls between the ages of 12 and 18 from four villages in Ghana participated in a non-randomized trial of sanitary pad provision with education. The trial had three levels of treatment: provision of pads with puberty education; puberty education alone; or control (no pads or education). The primary outcome was school attendance.

Results – After 3 months, providing pads with education significantly improved attendance among participants, (lambda 0.824, F = 3.760, p<.001). After 5 months, puberty education alone improved attendance to a similar level (M = 91.26, SD = 7.82) as sites where pads were provided with puberty education (Rural M = 89.74, SD = 9.34; Periurban M = 90.54, SD = 17.37), all of which were higher than control (M = 84.48, SD = 12.39). The total improvement through pads with education intervention after 5 months was a 9% increase in attendance. After 3 months, providing pads with education significantly improved attendance among participants. The changes in attendance at the end of the trial, after 5 months, were found to be significant by site over time. With puberty education alone resulting in a similar attendance level.

Conclusion – This pilot study demonstrated promising results of a low-cost, rapid-return intervention for girls’ education in a developing context. Given the considerable development needs of poorer countries and the potential of young women there, these results suggest that a large-scale cluster randomized trial is warranted.