Publications

“For example, when I hear that countries are choosing to comply with medium-term expenditure ceilings at the expense of adequate funding of AIDS programs, it strikes me that someone isn’t looking hard enough for sound alternatives. And I recognize that such principles of fiscal discipline are in place for good reason, but surely there must be means of accommodating vast new inflows without stirring economic demons.“
Peter Piot

In 1992, the government of Mali decided on a policy of reforming the management of public affairs on the basis of decentralisation. Various reasons lay behind this policy option of devolving powers and resources to local government authorities, including the need to deepen the ongoing democratisation process, tackle the problems of local development in a different way, recast the role of the State and promote security and peace. Decentralisation became a reality in 1999, following the organization of the local elections, and resulted in a profound change in the relationship between the State and citizens, while bringing public services closer to the community

This article is about taking stock of experiences of mainstreaming gender. It addresses two related concerns. First, that after three decades of feminist activism in the field of development – both at the level of theory and practice – most development institutions have still to be constantly reminded of the need for gender analysis in their work, policymakers have to be lobbied to “include” the “g” word and even our own colleagues need convincing that integrating a gender analysis makes a qualitative difference. Second, by constantly critiquing their own strategies, feminist advocates have changed their approaches, but institutional change continues to be elusive (except in a few corners).

This paper explores human resources constraints in health service delivery, especially with regards to specific disease control and provides an inventory of strategies that can be used to overcome constraints. This paper is the edited version of the report on the meeting of the Working Group “Priority Diseases” which is one of the seven working groups of the Joint Learning Initiative currently exploring strategies to address the human resources constraints in health services delivery

In developing countries, medicines may account for 30–40% of health expenditure. Many of these payments are made by individuals purchasing medicines for selfmedication and only rarely on prescription. Understanding how and why consumers make the choices they do is the critical fi rst step to intervening to ensure that these precious resources are spent as safely and productively as possible. This manual is a successor to the 1992 WHO publication, How to Investigate Drug Use in Communities, a small but important book that has been reprinted eight times. A year later came How to Investigate Drug Use in Health Facilities. Since then numerous courses have been held and many studies undertaken, with valuable experience gained in understanding the use of medicines in health facilities and communities. This manual’s authors have been leaders in the movement to better understand and improve medicines use in the community

In 2001 UNAIDS initiated the development of a toolkit with techniques and practices for AIDS competence in consultation with the UNAIDS Secretariat, with the UN Theme Groups in different countries and members of the UNAIDS Technical Network on Local Responses to HIV/AIDS. The toolkit aims to further strengthen the capacity and competence of different actors to address HIV/AIDS at local level. Experiences worldwide contributed to the identification and selection of practices and techniques for the toolkit and they meant for all with an interest in furthering local responses to HIV/AIDS. The Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) in the Netherlands manages the project for UNAIDS.

The KIT/ITAD team was invited to carry out an evaluation of DFID’s partnership with WHO within the context of the ISP and the ISP Action Plan, and as a first example of evaluating DFID’s partnership with other multilateral organisations.

Fin 2001, l’ONUSIDA a initié, en consultation avec le Secrétariat de l’ONUSIDA, les Groupes Thématiques des Nations Unies dans différents pays et les responsables du Département Développement de Réseaux Techniques (TND) de l’ONUSIDA, le développement d’un Recueil de Techniques et Pratiques pour le renforcement des Compétences en matière de lutte contre le SIDA. Ce Recueil d’outils a pour but de renforcer la capacité et les compétences des intervenants au niveau local à répondre aux défis posés par l’épidémie liée à l’infection VIH/SIDA.

Leprosy is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium leprae and is endemic in many developing countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) has adopted the goal of eliminating leprosy as a public health problem by the year 2005, defined as reducing the national prevalence below 1/10 000.1 Until now, the prevalence decreased mainly due to the introduction and subsequent shortening of multidrug treatment (MDT). Leprosy control strategies are designed to stop transmission through early case detection and treatment with MDT, but do not seem to have the desired effect. The number of new cases—719 330 in 20002—did not decline over the last 15 years, indicating that transmission is continuing at the same level.

No ano 2001, a UNAIDS deu início ao desenvolvimento de uma ‘caixa de ferramentas’ contendo um conjunto de técnicas e práticas para a capacitação na área de AIDS, em um esforço conjunto entre a Secretaria da UNAIDS, com os Grupos Temáticos das Nações Unidas em diferentes países e membros da Rede Técnica da UNAIDS para Repostas Localmente Apropriadas para HIV/AIDS

Important developments have taken place over the past decade in tackling the global leprosy burden. There has been a very significant reduction of over 90% in the total number of leprosy patients registered for treatment through the implementation of multidrug therapy regimes that have dramatically reduced the duration of treatment. However, despite this reduction in registered prevalence of leprosy, there has been no parallel reduction in the global case detection. This is a serious barrier to aspirations to eradicate leprosy in the future.