Please Support Trickle Up's Seed a Dream Mother's Day Campaign

This week, I am excited to announce the unveiling of our Seed a Dream Mother’s Day Campaign. Together, with journalist Campbell Brown, we are honoring mothers worldwide and raising awareness about those who so often have to go without. www.trickleup.org/mothersday

We hope you will join with us and highlight our Seed a Dream Campaign for Mother’s Day. Trickle Up focuses on women, providing them with seed capital, training and savings support to begin and maintain meaningful livelihoods, knowing that the profits from their endeavors will go to their children’s futures: education, health care, and nutrition. In fact, over 90% of our participants in India are mothers, and even more a responsible for taking care of children who aren’t their own. And 90% of participants in Mali have at least one child under the age of 11 in the household.

With each donation, we will send a Mother’s Day card to the donor to honor the mother in their life, letting her know that a donation was made in her name. With a donation of $100 of more, donors can choose to receive a limited edition Trickle Up necklace. These donations will help a woman in extreme poverty start a business, earn a better living and improve her and her family’s quality of life.

Please consider highlighting our campaign on your website, eblasts and social media outreach. Here are the necessary links:

· Seed A Dream Mother’s Day Campaign Website: www.trickleup.org/mothersday

· Campbell Brown’s Message on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_1YWGGagnOM

· Press Release: http://trickleup.monacolange.com/media/presscenter/upload/TU-Mothers-Day-Press-Release-FINAL.pdf

· Facebook: www.facebook.com/trickleup

· Twitter: twitter.com/trickleupnyc

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

World Bank and AidData put aid information on the map

WASHINGTON, DC, April 20, 2011 – The World Bank has released maps of its activities in 81 countries as part of the Mapping for Results initiative, a partnership between the Bank and AidData. The geocoded data represent more than 16,000 locations for over 2,700 active Bank activities across the world’s 79 poorest countries, as well as China and the Philippines. The Mapping for Results initiative is part of the World Bank Open Data Initiative and is fully committed to open, free and easy access to raw data. The socioeconomic and geographic location data displayed on the Mapping for Results platform can be downloaded, expanded, manipulated, and re-used without restriction. All of the geographic location data can also be accessed through the World Bank Open Data API.

The projects were geocoded by a team led by AidData researchers, who provided technical oversight and quality control for the geocoding process. AidData is a joint initiative of Brigham Young University, the College of William and Mary, and Development Gateway, and seeks to make aid information more accessible and transparent, particularly through a searchable database available at AidData.org. AidData contributed its expertise in standardizing and enhancing project-level information on development activities to the Mapping for Results partnership.

“The Mapping for Results initiative is a huge step toward empowering citizens to hold donor and government officials accountable,” said Jean-Louis Sarbib, CEO of Development Gateway. “Ultimately, citizens want to know how many vaccines are delivered, how many girls are able to attend primary school, and so forth—information on aid activities is much more powerful when it is transparent, easily accessible and understandable, and can be linked to results on the ground.”

Today, AidData in cooperation with the World Bank Institute launched open.aiddata.org, a new toolkit for sharing, using, and interpreting aid information. At Open.AidData, others can download the UCDP/AidData geocoding methodology developed by AidData and Uppsala University in Sweden. This methodology was adapted for use in the Mapping for Results initiative and can be used by any organization that wants to geo-enable its project data. The methodology is also consistent with the new aid information standard developed by the International Aid Transparency Initiative, which makes it easier for donors to share their information in a comparable, machine-readable format so that it can be aggregated and analyzed.

According to Michael Findley, a principal investigator with AidData and assistant professor at Brigham Young University, “It is becoming clear that donors often give similar types of aid to the same regions or cities, even if those locations are not always the areas of greatest need. If other donors begin to map their projects as well, coordination problems could be a thing of the past, allowing for development aid to reach those who need it most.”

About AidData

AidData is a collaborative initiative to provide products and services that promote the dissemination, analysis, and understanding of development finance information. At the core of the AidData program is the AidData database, which is a gateway to nearly 1 million records of development finance activities from donors around the world. AidData is a joint program of Brigham Young University, the College of William and Mary, and Development Gateway. For more information, visit www.aiddata.org

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

Development Gateway and Esri partner to make international aid more transparent

WASHINGTON, DC, April 14, 2011 – Development Gateway, an international non-profit that makes information on development aid more transparent and accessible, signed a memorandum of understanding with Esri, a leading provider of Geographic Information System (GIS) technology. The two organizations plan to continue joint efforts to leverage geospatial technology to support international development objectives.

“There is a huge amount of information on international aid available to the public online. But if you really want to understand what donors are doing, seeing the locations of aid activities on a map is very powerful,” says Nancy Choi, Director of Products and Operations at Development Gateway. “Particularly in disaster situations, we are increasingly seeing the use of interactive maps to coordinate relief efforts and ensure that resources are distributed to the areas of greatest need. But the same approach can work for long-term development efforts as well, especially in countries where there are dozens of donors implementing thousands of projects. Working with Esri, we intend to make aid information more visual, so that it’s easier for decision makers and the general public to access and understand.”

Esri and Development Gateway have already worked together to create the Development Loop application for AidData, a joint initiative of Development Gateway, Brigham Young University, and the College of William and Mary. Development Loop is a collaborative tool for planning, tracking, and assessing aid projects worldwide. Future versions will employ crowdsourcing tools, allowing development professionals and community beneficiaries of aid to create or update project data from anywhere in the world via free web and mobile applications. In doing so, AidData hopes to generate a “feedback loop” between aid donors and beneficiaries.

Development Gateway and Esri may also work together on new mapping interfaces for Development Gateway’s Aid Management Platform, a virtual workspace for governments and their development partners with implementations in 20 countries.

About Development Gateway
Development Gateway increases the impact of international development activities through innovative, sustainable information management solutions and services. A nonprofit organization with activities around the world, Development Gateway works to empower people to accelerate change and transform their societies.
http://www.developmentgateway.org

About Esri
Since 1969, Esri has been giving customers around the world the power to think and plan geographically. The market leader in geographic information system (GIS) technology, Esri applications provide the backbone for the world's mapping and spatial analysis via complete technical solutions for desktop, mobile, server, and Internet platforms.
http://www.esri.com


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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

New UNFPA Head Urged to Focus on Sexual and Reproductive Health

WASHINGTON, D.C. (April 11, 2011) —The new head of the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) should focus on the agency’s core mission—promoting sexual and reproductive health, including universal access to family planning, according to a Center for Global Development (CGD) study released today.

UNFPA’s new executive director, Babatunde Osotimehin, a former minister of health in Nigeria, has taken the helm at a time when UNFPA’s mission is receiving greater attention than ever. Yet the agency has been engaged in a broad range of activities that dilute its impact on high-priority Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which include improving child and maternal health, the report says.

UNFPA itself reports that an estimated 215 million women lack access to the modern contraceptives they need to prevent unwanted pregnancies each year. Other studies show that roughly 76 million pregnancies are unplanned and unwanted, and approximately 350,000 maternal deaths occur worldwide annually.

“UNFPA should focus on its core mission: expanding access to sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights for women around the world,” says Rachel Nugent, CGD deputy director of global health and co-chair of the working group that prepared the report. “Executive Director Osotimehin can lead the way in preventing thousands of maternal deaths and millions of unwanted pregnancies worldwide each year.”

David Bloom, a working group co-chair and chair of the department of Global Health and Population at the Harvard School of Public Health, adds: “Enabling women to avoid unwanted pregnancies is one of the best investments that the international community can make. UNFPA should position itself to be the global champion on this critical issue.”

Jotham Musinguzi, also a working group co-chair and the Africa regional director of Partners in Population and Development, an alliance involving 25 developing countries, says: “Investments in sexual and reproductive health services contribute to economic growth, societal and gender equity, and even democratic governance. Developing countries look to UNFPA for leadership on these issues.”

UNFPA has been squeezed from opposite ends of the political spectrum. From 2002 to 2008, the U.S. administration withheld funding out of concern that the agency supports programs that may include access to abortion. Conservatives in the U.S. Congress are again threatening to cut UNFPA’s funding as part of the current budget debate underway in Washington. Others have urged UNFPA to widen its remit to include a broad array of programs on the social and economic empowerment of women.

In response, UNFPA has worked on initiatives such as establishing safe spaces for sports, art, and socialization for youth or economically empowering women and youth in vocational training and self-employment—issues that promote the goal of women’s empowerment but risk distracting from the agency’s core mission of ensuring reproductive health and rights and access to contraception.

Since UNFPA, like many other agencies, will likely face flat or reduced funding in the near future, it should be selective and concentrate its activities on the core mission, the report says, and work closely with other UN agencies to accomplish broader goals.

CGD president Nancy Birdsall says that by focusing on its core mandate, UNFPA will be better able to “navigate and lead from its own strength among the many organizations and interests that comprise the population and development and sexual and reproductive health communities. Now is the time for UNFPA to make sexual and reproductive health its key mission.”

The UNFPA report is the latest in a series of CGD studies that offer recommendations to incoming leaders of international organizations.

In addition to Nugent, Bloom, and Musinguzi, sixteen other population and development experts from all regions of the world participated in the group’s deliberations and endorsed the final report.

The report offers four recommendations on how to achieve faster progress on UNFPA’s main objective while reducing redundancy and building on the strengths of various UN agencies that work on population, sexuality, health, women’s empowerment, and other issues related to UNFPA’s core mandate.

Four Recommendations for Action

• Establish and pursue a limited set of priorities closely related to UNFPA’s unique mission.
• Refine goals and transparently measure progress.
• Align human resources with a focused and renewed mission.
• Rebrand UNFPA as the lead agency for sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights.

The recommendations coincide with two of the eight MDGs: child health and maternal health. Specific MDG targets within these goals include reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters, and under-five child mortality by two-thirds from 1990 levels by 2015; as well as achieving universal access to reproductive health, including the unmet need for family planning.

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

New UNRWA Program in Gaza

I’m reaching out to concerned bloggers like you in hopes that you’ll help me spread the word about the new Adopt a School program in Gaza, created by the United Nations Works and Relief Agency (UNRWA). UNRWA provides education, healthcare, social services, and job training to 4.8 million Palestinian refugees in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan.

Each day thousands of Gazan children are forced to miss school so that they can provide for their families by working menial jobs in the streets. The Adopt a School program was created to give families incentives to keep their children in school and to increase the access Gazan children have to quality primary education. Adopt a School covers the cost of school supplies, especially meals, that Gazan families would otherwise be unable to afford, equips schools with sports equipment and recreational items, and provides programs for all students including those with learning and physical disabilities. The program also provides funds to administer psychological and remedial support for students in need, and funds for desperately needed human rights promotion and health education courses. More information about Adopt a School can be found on our website www.afu-adoptaschool.org.

In support of this new UNRWA program, American Friends of UNRWA (AFU) and its partners have adopted the Beach Elementary Co-ed School near Gaza City. Beach School serves a total of 1,262 elementary students in grades 1-4. Most of those students come from Beach Camp, located in the northern part of Gaza City.

I would also like to take a moment to acknowledge the work of one of our partners: Arab-American artist Kinda Hibrawi. A passionate supporter of humanitarian efforts for Palestinian refugees, Kinda is donating 25% of the online sales from her exclusive Arabic calligraphy t-shirt line to Adopt a School.

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

DR CONGO INTRODUCES NEW VACCINE AGAINST ONE OF ITS LEADING CAUSES OF CHILD DEATH

KINSHASA, 4 April 2011 – In an effort to drastically improve the chances of children reaching their fifth birthday, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) today stepped up its immunization programme by including vaccines to combat pneumonia. Initially the expanded programme will be in two of the 11 provinces. Pneumonia is one of the biggest killers of children worldwide and is responsible for a quarter of all child deaths under five in DRC.

DRC First Lady Olive Lembe Kabila and Minister of Health Victor Makwenge Kaput joined parents and health workers in Kinshasa to witness the first child being immunized as part of the official introduction of pneumococcal vaccine into the national routine immunization programme.

On the same day in Paris, GAVI founding partner Bill Gates launched a European-wide awareness campaign to highlight the extraordinary life-saving opportunity that vaccines represent for donor countries.

Globally, pneumococcal disease, the most common and serious form of respiratory infections, kills over a million of people every year – including more than half a million children before their fifth birthday. It is the leading cause of pneumonia, which is the major cause of death among children aged below 5 years, contributing to 18 percent of under five deaths in developing countries.

“Today’s launch is an enormous moment for my country, where too many children die of this terrible disease,” said Mr Kaput. “Pneumonia causes suffering and death. Therefore we celebrate a wonderful day today. The global introduction of pneumococcal vaccination is a milestone in global health and will help us reduce child mortality.”

“The introduction of the pneumococcal vaccine and the systematic immunization of the children could save the life of 1 in 5 children dying from respiratory infectious diseases”, said Dr Léodégal Bazira, acting WHO Representative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With the second highest child mortality rates in world DRC faces major health challenges. A study conducted in 2004 by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) revealed that pneumonia killed at least 132,000 children under five in the country, making it the second biggest cause of death amongst under five children in the country after malaria. Only 42% of children suspected to have pneumonia are taken to an appropriate healthcare provider.

“With electricity, roads, and refrigerators in short supply, delivering vaccines to remote health centers in DRC is an enormous challenge,” said Pierrette Vu Thi, UNICEF Representative in DR Congo. “Together with its partners UNICEF is committed to ensure that all children in this country have the same access to this life-saving vaccine”.

As the world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF has been supporting vaccination efforts in DRC with supply, technical and financial support since 1963.

In the past five months, Nicaragua, Guyana, Yemen, Kenya, Sierra Leone, and Mali introduced the pneumococcal vaccines thanks to the support from the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation (GAVI) which brings together governments, UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO) and other key players in global health.

GAVI has committed to support the introduction of pneumococcal vaccines in 19 developing countries by 2012 and, if it gets sufficient funding from its donors, plans to roll them out to more than 40 countries by 2015.

“Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective public health investments a government can make and we are counting on our donors to continue their strong backing for our life-saving mission,” said Helen Evans, GAVI interim CEO.

GAVI needs an additional US$ 3.7 billion over the next five years to continue its support for immunization in the world’s poorest countries and introduce new and underused vaccines including the pneumococcal vaccine and the rotavirus vaccine which tackles diarrhoea – the second biggest killer of children under five.

The roll-out of the pneumococcal vaccines in countries such as DRC has been made possible through an innovative finance mechanism pioneered by GAVI called the Advance Market Commitment (AMC).

With US$ 1.5 billion from Italy, the United Kingdom, Canada, the Russian Federation, Norway, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a commitment of US$ 1.3 billion from GAVI, the AMC allowed the acceleration of production capacity by the two manufacturers who currently produce the vaccines. This has contributed to ensuring that this new generation of pneumococcal vaccines are affordable in developing countries, as they are now available at a fraction of the price chaired in developed countries.

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The GAVI Alliance is a public-private global health partnership committed to saving children’s lives and protecting people’s health by increasing access to immunization in poor countries. The Alliance brings together developing country and donor governments, the World Health Organization, UNICEF, the World Bank, the vaccine industry in both industrialised and developing countries, research and technical agencies, civil society organizations, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other private philanthropists. Since it was launched at the World Economic Forum in 2000, GAVI has prevented more than five million future deaths and helped protect 288 million children with new and underused vaccines. For more information, please visit: www.gavialliance.org http://www.gavialliance.org/vision/policies/new_vaccines/pneumococcal/index.php

UNICEF is on the ground in over 150 countries and territories to help children survive and thrive, from early childhood through adolescence. The world’s largest provider of vaccines for developing countries, UNICEF supports child health and nutrition, good water and sanitation, quality basic education for all boys and girls, and the protection of children from violence, exploitation, and AIDS. UNICEF is funded entirely by the voluntary contributions of individuals, businesses, foundations and governments. For more information about UNICEF and its work visit: www.unicef.org

WHO is the directing and coordinating authority on international health within the United Nations system. With people working in over 147 countries, WHO is responsible for providing leadership on global health matters, shaping the health research agenda, setting norms and standards, articulating evidence- based policy options, providing technical support to countries and monitoring and assessing health trends. In addition to medical doctors, public health specialists, scientists and epidemiologists, WHO staff include people trained to manage administrative, financial, and information systems, as well as experts in the fields of health statistics, economics and emergency relief, working together to ensure better health for all. For more information, please visit: www.who.int

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

Women Deliver and Vestergaard Frandsen Announce Competition for Women Bloggers

“Women Bloggers Deliver” will award two female bloggers with a trip to Kenya to learn about clean water and women in development

6 April 2011, New York – Women Deliver, in partnership with Vestergaard Frandsen, announced today the launch of “Women Bloggers Deliver,” a competition that will send two female bloggers on a trip to Kakamega, Kenya to observe a unique public health campaign with a climate change component that will provide millions of girls and women with access to safe and clean drinking water. The winning bloggers will accompany community workers as they distribute LifeStraw® Family water filters to almost a million households, and watch as families and communities are transformed by this important public health intervention.

In April and May of 2011, LifeStraw® Family water filters will be distributed to approximately 90% of all households in the Western Province of Kenya in a groundbreaking program that links access to safe drinking water with low carbon development. The program, called “Carbon for Water,” will provide more than four million residents with quick access to safe drinking water at home. The program is led and solely funded by Vestergaard Frandsen (VF), a global company that specializes in complex emergency response and disease control textiles, including LifeStraw® Family. It is self-funded by VF and will be reimbursed by carbon financing.

“This competition will provide a unique opportunity for leading bloggers to travel to Kenya and observe the most important project yet to combine the power of climate change mitigation with public health,” said Mikkel Vestergaard Frandsen, CEO of the Group, Vestergaard Frandsen. “I'm sure the winning bloggers will have the experience of a lifetime and will share their knowledge and insights with a very wide and influential audience."

For one week in May, from May 14 to May 22, the bloggers will travel through Kenya’s Western Province, all expenses paid, to research and write about the campaign and the women whose lives are being affected. In sub-Saharan Africa, many girls and women spend hours a day collecting water, often walking miles in extreme conditions and on dangerous roads to fetch water and wood for fuel. This is time that could be better spent in school, as one in three girls in sub-Saharan Africa does not attend primary school and misses out on the opportunity to build a better future for herself and her family.

“The huge challenges in sub-Saharan Africa—poverty, access to safe and clean drinking water, access to family planning, maternal mortality—can only be tackled if women are central to the conversation,” said Jill Sheffield, president of Women Deliver. “We hope that this competition will harness women bloggers’ energy and passion to showcase women as not only part of the problem, but part of the solution.”

To honor the bloggers’ work and the work of Women Deliver in raising the profile of women from this community, the Emusanda Health Center in Kakamega will receive a long sought-after maternity ward donated by Vestergaard Frandsen with contributions from the blogosphere.

To learn more and apply for the competition, visit this link: http://www.vestergaard-frandsen.com/women-bloggers-deliver/

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About Vestergaard Frandsen:

Vestergaard Frandsen is a European company specializing in complex emergency response and disease control products. The company operates under a unique Humanitarian Entrepreneurship business model. This “profit for a purpose” approach has turned humanitarian responsibility into its core business. Vestergaard Frandsen was founded in 1957 and has evolved into a multinational leader focused on helping to achieve the UN’s Millennium Development Goals. For more information please visit www.vestergaard-frandsen.com

About Women Deliver:

Women Deliver is a global advocacy organization that brings together voices from around the world to call for action for improved health and well-being for girls and women. Launched in 2007, Women Deliver works globally to generate political commitment and financial investment for fulfilling Millennium Development Goal #5 — to reduce maternal mortality and achieve universal access to reproductive health. Building from the groundbreaking conferences Women Deliver convened in 2007 and 2010, the initiative harnesses commitments, partnerships, and networks to help prevent the approximately 350,000 deaths of girls and women from pregnancy-related causes that occur every year. Women Deliver’s message is that maternal health is both a human right and a practical necessity for sustainable development. Invest in women—it pays. Visit www.womendeliver.org

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

The Living Proof Project in France

Paris, 4 April 2011 – Bill Gates, co-chair of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, will visit Paris today at an important time before France hosts the G8/ G20 for the French launch of the Living Proof campaign in partnership with ONE.

The campaign challenges perceptions about aid, providing evidence of how smart, targeted aid is saving millions of lives, improving livelihoods, and building prosperous and stable societies. Gates will show that we are on the brink of some enormous successes but these will only become a reality if donor governments keep up their support for smart aid and encourage others to do the same. France is in a unique and powerful position through the G8 and G20 to keep up the momentum and leadership in building a better world for millions.

We have already seen some remarkable successes:

• In the last 50 years, child deaths in the developing world have been cut by more than 50 percent, despite the birth rate increasing;
  
• Polio cases have been reduced by 99 percent since 1988, and we are now on the threshold of eradicating only the second disease in history;
  
• Measles deaths in Africa dropped by 92 percent between 2000 and 2008;
  
• Malaria cases have been reduced by 50 percent in 38 countries between 2000 and 2008;
  
• Ghana’s agriculture sector is growing at more than 5 percent a year and the country cut hunger levels by 75 percent from 1990 to 2004.

These are just a few examples. Living Proof will bring these statistics to life, telling the stories of the people behind the numbers, and the real lives that have been transformed.

Commenting ahead of his visit, Bill Gates thanked France for its support of the GAVI Alliance, the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, and the Global Fund To Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and encouraged France to place a priority on health and development in the coming months.

“Vaccines are one of the best long-term investments we can make to prevent disease and ensure children have a healthy start to life. They are a great example of smart aid, for just a few Euros per dose, a child can be protected for life. We hope that President Sarkozy will continue to champion vaccines, and the need to use vaccines to reach a final end to polio, at this year’s G8 summit.”

Working with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, ONE France will share the proof with all its members, their friends and families, across its social networks, and with its partners in the NGO community.

“In France, development aid is always associated in people’s minds with old stories of Françafrique, complicated relations with former African colonies, and a mixture of guilt and economic interests. But France is a very important donor, and it knows how to lead its partners to action like last year when it led by example for the replenishment of the Global Fund,” says Guillaume Grosso, director of ONE France.

“Living Proof aims to challenge perceptions about aid and will let the French know that it helped accomplish progress. The French people’s commitment to the fight against poverty is necessary to encourage their leaders to keep their promises. Announcements are frequently made, but rarely followed by action. The economic crisis they are struggling with in their daily lives should not make the French forget that cutbacks in programs and freezes in the development budget will cost millions of lives and destabilize vulnerable regions of the world.”

NOTE : Bill Gates will be sharing similar presentations with policymakers in Strasbourg and Berlin later in the week.

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.

A Call to Action: Deworming Needs in Latin America and the Caribbean

Washington, D.C. – A new report released today by the Global Network for Neglected Tropical Diseases, an initiative of the Sabin Vaccine Institute, highlights the impact that a small group of neglected diseases are having on children in the Americas and presents concrete policy recommendations that can lead to significant progress in achieving several Millennium Development Goals in the Americas by 2015.

Entitled A Call to Action: Addressing Soil-transmitted Helminths in Latin America and the Caribbean, the report was developed in partnership with the Pan American Health Organization and the Inter-American Development Bank. The findings shed light on the health and economic toll imposed on at-risk populations by three types of parasitic intestinal worms, known collectively as soil-transmitted helminths (STH).

At least 46 million children in the Americas, or nearly 20% in the region, are at risk of becoming infected by these parasites. Infection often leads to chronic malnutrition, impairment of physical and cognitive development, and traps vulnerable populations in a cycle of poverty.

The good news is that highly cost-effective, proven interventions exist to treat intestinal parasites and many governments in the Latin American and Caribbean region already are conducting deworming campaigns. To address program gaps, deworming interventions can be easily integrated into various existing programs that many countries and their partners are already implementing in health, nutrition, immunization, education, water and sanitation, and income support.

The report outlines key recommendations for treatment against intestinal parasites that governments and key stakeholders of the Americas can include in their portfolios of activities as they seek to develop future programs and partnerships.

These recommendations are broken down into four areas:

1. Developing National Deworming Policies and Plans of Action;

2. Bundling Mass Treatment against Worms with Other Health Care Delivery Systems;

3. Leveraging National Social Welfare Campaigns, the Private Sector, Government Benefit Programs, and Community Mobilizations; and,

4. Mobilizing Political and Social Leadership.

Other key findings from the report include:

· Controlling and eliminating NTDs in Latin America and the Caribbean is achievable. Deworming treatment is cheap, safe, and effective. It can be easily integrated into existing health interventions in a sustainable way for little additional cost.

· Children are most often infected between the first and third year of their lives. The parasites undermine the cognitive development of young children: they diminish the ability to learn,increase memory loss and lower IQ levels. By treating these diseases once or twice a year, countries in the Americas could begin to:

§ rid millions of children from the burden of these diseases;

§ significantly improve their quality of life; and,

§ increase their potential and future socioeconomic development through better educational performance.


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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.