On October 3, PSI hosted a speaker series discussing how less than 1% of the federal budget builds stronger economies, saves lives and protects our borders. The three-part series moderated by Michael Gerson (Washington Post Columnist and Senior Advisor at ONE) focused on economy, national security and saving lives, and ultimately the support of global health programs.
Here are some highlights:
Panel 1: Improving economic opportunity
As we move further into the 21st century, water security has become increasingly important and attracted growing international attention. More than 1 in 6 people in the world live without access to an adequate amount of clean, potable water, approximately 894 million people in total. Water is intricately linked to health, from hydration to preventing the spread of illnesses through unclean water to irrigating crops to provide adequate food supplies.
Nearly 1,000 women die in childbirth every day around the world. And each day, 22,000 children also perish, mostly from preventable or treatable causes. These heartbreaking and unacceptable facts are addressed in two reports recently released by Save the Children.
As the second day of the CORE Group’s Spring Meeting concluded, three themes kept recurring throughout the plenary and some of the smaller, concurrent break-out sessions.
First: collaboration.
Second: engaging men in maternal and child health programs.
And third: the power of social networks for girls.
Think of poverty like a bathtub. There’s a faucet pouring people into the bathtub of poverty, and a drain letting people out. The level of what (or who) is in the tub matters less than the flow.
The five day M&E meeting for MCHIP’s field partners has been packed with activities that have kept the 70+ participants very busy throughout the week. On Wednesday, we decided to take a break from the classroom structure of presentations and lectures, and head to various health facilities around Nairobi for some hands on mHealth practice.
In Afghanistan, Sadiqa wanted to become a midwife after witnessing her sister nearly die giving birth. At the time, she and her family members had relied on traditional means and home remedies to try to stop her sister’s excessive postpartum bleeding. Ultimately, the new mother had to be taken to a hospital some 20 kilometers away. And although she and her newborn daughter survived, Sadiqa’s sister never fully recovered and had no more children.
Monitoring, Evaluation and Research (MER) is taking center stage this week in Nairobi, Kenya, as MCHIP and Jhpiego co-host an MER workshop for colleagues based around the world. Seventy-two participants from 28 countries are spending this week together networking, learning best practices, and applying strategies for strengthening MER at the country-level.
