Tag: Health

Policy, Social Protection

Social protection systems: not simple, but worth the effort

By Alexander Pick, Economist, OECD Development Centre

Check out the upcoming international conference Together to achieve Universal Social Protection by 2030 for more on this topic

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School kids in Kabupaten Karimon, Indonesia. Photo: Shutterstock

A systematic approach lies at the core of universal social protection. However, it is not immediately obvious what the term means, or why it is so important. After all, do we not take other systems for granted, like the system of government or health and education systems?

A social protection system must reflect the needs of the people it covers — ideally the entire population, throughout their lives and whatever their income — and it must incorporate the full range of different programmes that exist as well as the multitude of institutions involved. It must also harness different financing mechanisms for sustained and sustainable expansion. The fundamental objective of a social protection system is to get these moving parts working together to ensure coordination and coherence – to fill gaps, avoid duplication and optimise resource allocations to provide effective coverage against the most important risks people face. Continue reading “Social protection systems: not simple, but worth the effort”

Development Matters
Gender, Women and Girls

Gender equity starts at the dinner table

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By David Beasley, Executive Director, World Food Programme

This blog is part of a special series marking the launch of the updated
2019 Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI)

Adolescent girls are the most at risk of not being able to access a nutritious diet. Ensuring they do is key to economic development, peace and stability.

Imagine a family sitting down for a meal – a father, a mother who’s nursing a little baby, a school-aged boy and an adolescent girl. Who has the most on their dinner plate? Maybe Dad, since he’s the biggest and has a physically demanding job. Then the boy – I had two of them and sometimes it was amazing how much they could eat. Then after that, the two slimmest: Mom and daughter, right?

But this so-called cultural norm is exactly the opposite of what ought to happen, and that’s why a new focus on the nutrition needs of adolescent girls could make a big impact on the future of so many developing nations around the world.

Adolescent girls, even more than boys, require the most nutritious diet possible, loaded with fresh fruits and vegetables, along with meat, fish and dairy to give them the key vitamins and minerals that help them to grow. Unfortunately, in far too many areas, the needs of adolescent girls are rarely prioritised.

Continue reading “Gender equity starts at the dinner table”
Development Matters
Development finance

Promoting innovation: Lessons from the Global Fund

By Guido Schmidt-Traub, Executive Director, Sustainable Development Solutions Network

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Since its inception in 2001, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria has become a highly respected pooled financing institution that scores top marks in independent reviews.1, 2

It has disbursed some USD 40 billion in grants for complex disease control and treatment programmes in fragile and non-fragile countries alike.

Success was far from assured in 2001, as developing countries, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, faced a perfect storm of surging HIV/AIDS, multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis and surging malaria deaths. Control and treatment interventions were available in high-income countries, but no one knew how to tackle the diseases in resource-poor settings. In particular, HIV/AIDS treatment was deemed impossible in Africa and was outside recommended approaches for tackling the disease.3

The Global Fund was designed precisely to tackle the lack of quality programmes and implementation mechanisms in developing countries. All too often, however, it is seen as just another funding mechanism. Many reviews lump it together with other multilateral mechanisms and trust funds.4

This is a mistake. The Global Fund has unique design principles that set it apart from bi- and multilateral financing mechanisms with the notable exception of Gavi.5

Continue reading “Promoting innovation: Lessons from the Global Fund”

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Africa, Building resilience, SDGs

Infrastructure, jobs, good governance: Bringing Africans’ priorities to the G20 table

By Michael Bratton, University Distinguished Professor of Political Science and African Studies at Michigan State University and senior adviser to Afrobarometer, and E. Gyimah-Boadi, Executive Director of Afrobarometer and the Ghana Center for Democratic Development

 

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Beyond the limelight and the headlines, the recent Group of 20 (G20) summit accomplished an important piece of business by launching the Compact with Africa. The next step is crucial: negotiating the priorities that the compact will address.

One key concept is that the compact is with – rather than for – Africa, implying that it will rely on true partnerships to pursue mutually agreed-upon goals.

With its contribution to a “20 Solutions” document presented to the G20 by a consortium of think tanks, the pan-African research network Afrobarometer is working to ensure that the compact will take into account what ordinary Africans say they want and need.

Continue reading “Infrastructure, jobs, good governance: Bringing Africans’ priorities to the G20 table”

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Africa, Human Development, Youth

Girls robbed of their childhood in the Sahel

By Laurent Bossard, Director, Sahel and West Africa Club Secretariat (SWAC/OECD)

In Mali, Niger and Chad, 40% of children under five suffer from stunting. These children do not receive enough nutrients. Their bodies — their brains, bones and muscles — do not get enough calcium, iron or zinc or enough vitamins (A, B2, B12 etc.), so they do not have enough energy to grow and develop. Many of these children will suffer from chronic diseases and will have cognitive problems — so they won’t be able to go to school for long, if at all. As adults, they will have little chance to flourish and, secondarily, will have low economic productivity. Many will also die very young, often before turning five.

In these countries, at least 100 children out of every thousand die before reaching the age of five. That’s 10 times more than in Sri Lanka, 20 times more than in Canada and 50 times more than in Luxembourg. Why are these children dying and why are they doomed to a hopeless future?  Continue reading “Girls robbed of their childhood in the Sahel”

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Human Development, Policy, SDGs

Human development and the 2030 Agenda: Effecting positive change in people’s lives

By Selim Jahan, Director, Human Development Report Office, UNDP

humandevThis September marked the first anniversary of the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). As we shift into the implementation phase, increasingly I am asked: “How is the concept of human development linked to the 2030 Agenda? How is it relevant to the achievement of the new goals?”

The UN Millennium Declaration and the Millennium Development Goals already mirrored the basic principles of human development – expanding human capabilities by addressing basic human deprivations (ending extreme poverty and hunger, promoting good health and education, etc.).
Continue reading “Human development and the 2030 Agenda: Effecting positive change in people’s lives”

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Africa, Building resilience

Speeding ahead with a rear-view vision: the looming crisis of air pollution in Africa

By Dr Rana Roy, Consulting Economist, author of The Cost of Air Pollution in Africa, OECD Development Centre Working Papers, 2016

Africa is speeding toward a new crisis: an explosive increase in air pollution, with all its human and economic costs.

Continue reading “Speeding ahead with a rear-view vision: the looming crisis of air pollution in Africa”
Latin America and the Caribbean, New social contract

How middle class are middle-income households in Latin America?

By Ángel Melguizo (OECD Development Centre) and Nora Lustig (Tulane University)

On labour informality and its causes

 One of the most important achievements of the recent period of economic expansion in Latin America has been the substantial reduction of poverty and the surge of an emerging middle class. According to World Bank estimates (Ferreira et al, 2013), in 2009 the Latin American population with a daily income of between 4 and 50 dollars a day (in parity of purchasing power) represents 68% in the region today, compared with 29% who still are moderate poverty. These ‘middle sectors’ are composed of 38% belonging to a vulnerable population, which has between 4 and 10 dollars a day, and 30% middle class, between 10 and 50 dollars. Continue reading “How middle class are middle-income households in Latin America?”

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Policy

India’s Development Tug-of-War: Which side will win?

By Shailaja Chandra, Former Permanent Secretary of the Government of India and former Chief Secretary, Delhi; Former Executive Director, National Population Stabilisation Fund, India For a chaotic country full of argumentative Indians many of whom are poor and uneducated, India’s continuous economic growth (not prosperity) remains a surprise. But something else is even more striking. The country has the world’s largest youngest population: 27 million … Continue reading India’s Development Tug-of-War: Which side will win?

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Youth

Closing the gap on youth well-being

By Alexandre Kolev, Head of the social cohesion unit at the OECD Development Centre Today’s world youth population ages 10 to 24, is 1.8 billion people strong and represents the largest cohort ever to be transitioning to adulthood. The vast majority of these young people – 88% – live in developing countries. These young people are the next generation. If properly nurtured, they can be … Continue reading Closing the gap on youth well-being

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