More From the Blog

  • Patriotism, sacrifice and an HIV vaccine

    Over the past week, scientists and advocates around the world refocused their attention on the search for an HIV vaccine. Fittingly the observance stems from a long ago speech by President Bill Clinton. On May 18, 1997, Mr. Clinton delivered an inspiring commencement address at Morgan State University in Baltimore, Maryland. In the speech, the president challenged the scientific community and the graduating class from one of America’s foremost historically black universities to invest their talents in the discovery of an HIV vaccine. Mr. Clinton also called for a worldwide commitment to develop an “AIDS vaccine within the next decade.” Since that commencement, May 18 has been marked by scientists, advocates and governments as HIV Vaccine Awareness Day.

    In the years following Mr. Clinton’s bold challenge, there have been gains and setbacks in our quest to find an HIV vaccine.

    In 2009, the world applauded when the U.S. Army’s research program and the Thai Ministry of Health announced the first HIV vaccine trial to show efficacy. The trial results showed that the candidate vaccines in the RV144 study worked in 31 percent of the people who were vaccinated. Although this level of efficacy is not sufficient to bring a product to market, it is a promising sign that a vaccine is indeed possible.

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  • ROADS II: Transforming corridors of risk into pathways of prevention and hope

  • FHI 360 livelihoods project hosts Twitter chat and launches new website

    On May 23rd, from 12:00 to 1:30 p.m. EDT, FHI 360’s Livelihoods and Food Security Technical Assistance (LIFT) project, Agrilinks and USAID Global Health will be co-hosting an #AskAg Twitter chat on the “Intersection of HIV/AIDS and Food Security” as a part of Global Health month at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).

    Twitter chats are virtual social media conversations on specific topics. The Agrilinks’ #AskAg series is a monthly event that convenes different partners to discuss current topics in agriculture and food security. These events leverage social media to facilitate new types of knowledge exchange between technical experts and chat participants from around the world. This month, we’ll have a panel of expert tweeters, including LIFT’s Meaghan Murphy, to discuss approaches to improve food security, particularly for those affected by HIV or AIDS.

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  • FHI 360’s Deputy Country Director for Nigeria, Dr. Robert Chiegil, spoke with Voice of America’s health correspondent Linord Moudou yesterday about reducing the impact of HIV and TB in Nigeria and other African countries. Watch the video below.

  • Partnering to prepare tomorrow’s teachers

    Since 2005, the Teachers for a New Era (TNE) Learning Network, of which I’m a co-director, has brought together 30 university teacher preparation programs from around the country to learn from one another’s successes and challenges. We at the TNE Learning Network know how a community of peers can spread the word about good ideas in innovative teacher preparation, and we’re not alone. As part of the Network for Excellence in Teaching (NExT) initiative, the Bush Foundation and 14 teacher preparation programs in Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota are working together to transform the way they recruit, prepare, place and support great new teachers for their communities and states.

    The TNE Learning Network has always encouraged and supported our network members to develop strong relationships with their local P-12 schools and districts, but after a few years we took a step back to reassess and redefine our network. We wanted to be more explicit that teachers and school administrators are also teacher educators, and they need to be part of any conversation about getting the best new teachers into tomorrow’s schools.

    With that in mind, in 2011 we set out to visit exceptional partnerships to explore how schools and universities can be good partners in preparing new teachers—and how some programs are already partnering effectively. With colleagues in tow from schools, colleges of arts and sciences, and colleges of education, we spent several days in diverse communities talking to veteran, new and future educators about how their partnerships are changing schools and universities for the better.

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    NGOs and the UN: Collaborating for global good

    As an international human development organization dedicated to addressing some of the world’s most enduring challenges, FHI 360 is committed to helping to create an environment where all individuals and communities have the opportunity to reach their highest potential. It is this vision that inspires us to have a voice in global policy discussions on the issues important to our work and mission. To that end, FHI 360 is pleased to have been recently granted general consultative status from the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), a unique opportunity for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to interact with global leaders.

    ECOSOC is the principal entity that coordinates the economic, social and related work for the 14 United Nations specialized agencies, functional commissions and five regional commissions. It serves as the central forum for discussing international economic and social issues, and for formulating policy recommendations addressed to Member States and the United Nations system.

    Consultative status benefits both NGOs and the UN. This collaboration allows the UN to secure advice and information from organizations with special expertise in their areas of interest, while also enabling organizations to express their views and opinions on an international stage.

    With general consultative status, NGOs have the ability to:

    • Provide data and expert analysis directly from the field
    • Help monitor and implement international agreements
    • Raise public awareness of relevant issues
    • Play a major role in advancing the UN’s goals and objectives
    • Contribute information to and make statements at UN events
    • Enter the United Nations premises

    May is the last month for NGOs to apply for ECOSOC consultative status in order to be considered by the 2014 NGO Committee. For more information about ECOSOC consultative status, go to http://csonet.org/index.php?menu=17. To apply, please click here.

  • The power of public–private partnerships in tackling global health challenges

    This week, GBCHealth will bring together some of the most prominent private-sector leaders in the world to discuss strategies for tackling pressing global health challenges. This year’s GBCHealth conference will focus on how business can better align its work with the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The fourth MDG is to reduce mortality for children under 5 years old. The biggest threats to young children are pneumonia and diarrheal diseases, which are the cause of nearly 2 million deaths a year in children under 5 years old. The good news is that there is a simple way to prevent much of the spread of these two diseases: handwashing. And the private sector has been on the forefront of promoting handwashing in developing countries for more than a decade.

    In 2000, I co-founded the Global Public–Private Partnership for Handwashing along with the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the World Bank/ Water and Sanitation Program. Today, FHI 360 operates the secretariat for the partnership, and our membership has expanded to include Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Colgate-Palmolive, the University of Buffalo, the World Health Organization, the U.S. Agency for International Development, and the United Nations Children’s Fund. Each member of our partnership contributes financial resources, skills or time.

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  • It’s time to control asthma

    It may seem simple: breathe in, breathe out. But for the 25 million Americans who have asthma, inhaling and exhaling can be like breathing through a straw. Asthma is a common, chronic disease causing inflammation of the airways. In the United States, asthma is responsible for nine deaths each day and costs the health care system $56 billion every year. Asthma is more common and severe among African American, Puerto Rican and Native American children.

    There is no cure for asthma. But with proper treatment, asthma can be controlled. Each May, people across the globe commemorate World Asthma Day and Asthma Awareness Month to spread the message that it’s time to control asthma.

    FHI 360 recently worked with the U.S. National Institutes of Health to implement the National Asthma Control Initiative, a program that empowers health care providers and patients to follow the latest science-based asthma care guidelines.

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  • When marketing and conscience merge

    In Toronto in late April, more than 500 marketers gathered to present research and discuss their trade. And though individuals representing various disciplines came from more than 40 countries, only one product was pitched: behavior change.

    The event was the World Social Marketing Conference, and it brought together a community of individuals who use conventional marketing principles to improve lives. The presentations displayed solutions as diverse as the problems that social marketers face in their work. Whether encouraging individuals receiving food subsidies in Oklahoma to consume low-fat milk, generating a brand that promotes tobacco cessation for teens who frequent alternative rock concerts in Virginia, or modifying spoons to decrease sugar consumption in Sri Lanka, presenters at the conference showed that the marketing techniques that so successfully encourage unhealthy behaviors can also be used to develop positive ones.

    One other important outlet for social marketing research was also present in Toronto. Social Marketing Quarterly (SMQ), a peer-reviewed journal managed in association with FHI 360, has been a voice for the social marketing community since 1994. Founded by Carol Bryant and James Lindenberger at the University of South Florida, SMQ has been a bridge between academics and practitioners and is the longest-running publication focused exclusively on social marketing.

    SMQ delivers theoretical research and case studies as well as “Notes from the Field” from prominent social marketers such as Lynne Doner Lotenberg, Phil Kotler and Bill Smith. It serves as a water cooler to the community, ensuring that the conversations started in places like Toronto continue to occur outside of convention centers.

    For more information on the Social Marketing Quarterly, visit smq.sagepub.com.

  • Development professionals who want to create effective interventions that improve the well-being of children and youth must have an in-depth understanding of how young people spend their time. Time-use research yields valuable, contextual data that can inform the design and implementation of interventions and the measurement of outcomes. This data sheds light on key measures of well-being, including school attendance, access to opportunities for play and socialization, safety, child labor and gender inequalities. Tracking changes in time use can also help projects identify successes and risks to children so that practitioners can suggest appropriate adjustments to interventions.

    Traditionally, this information has been gathered from adults. That input, however, can be skewed by the value adults place on certain activities, which is why it is important to work directly with children and youth to gather information on their time use.

    FHI 360’s Supporting Transformation by Reducing Insecurity and Vulnerability with Economic Strengthening (STRIVE) project developed a tool and guide for child-friendly, participatory rapid appraisal (PRA) to help with these efforts: The Time Use PRA Guide and Toolkit for Child and Youth Development Practitioners.

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