Degrees | Page 3 of 45 | A 360-degree perspective on human development

July 16, 2019
Celebrating self-care month: Six ways FHI 360 is advancing the self-care agenda for sexual and reproductive health

Written by
Kate H. Rademacher, Technical Advisor, Contraceptive Technology Innovation, FHI 360
Holly Burke, Scientist, Reproductive, Maternal, Newborn, Child Health, FHI 360

The full version of this post originally appeared on Medium.

Self-management. Self-testing. Self-awareness. These are three pillars of self-care interventions that can help promote the sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) of women, men and youth according to new guidelines released by the World Health Organization (WHO). WHO defines self-care as “the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider.” Self-care as part of reproductive health is not a new concept. Throughout history, people have sought to control their fertility. However, in the context of a global shortage of trained health care workers and with an estimated 214 million women in developing countries who still have an unmet need for contraception, both new and existing SRHR self-care interventions can play a critical role in helping close the gap while at the same time empowering individuals to take control of their health.

This July is self-care month, and FHI 360 is excited to join partners around the world in advancing strategies to meet the SRHR needs of women, men and youth through evidence-based self-care interventions. There are six ways that FHI 360 is helping advance the SRHR self-care agenda.

Read the complete post.

Tags: contraception, contraceptives, self-care, sexual and reproductive health, SRHR, women, Youth

November 8, 2018
#NextGenFP: Envisioning the future of family planning

Written by
Laneta Dorflinger, Distinguished Scientist and Director, Contraceptive Technology Innovation, FHI 360
Kate H. Rademacher, Technical Advisor, Contraceptive Technology Innovation, FHI 360

This week, more than 3,700 participants will gather in Kigali, Rwanda, for the fifth International Conference on Family Planning (ICFP). What is at stake? The lives and well-being of an estimated 214 million women of reproductive age in developing countries who want to avoid or delay pregnancy but are not using an effective form of modern contraception.

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October 18, 2018
Preventing and responding to infectious disease outbreaks

Written by
Patrick Fine, Chief Executive Officer, FHI 360

Are we prepared for the next infectious disease outbreak?

In this episode of A Deeper Look, I speak with Dr. Jonathan Quick, Senior Fellow Emeritus at Management Sciences for Health and author of the new book, The End of Epidemics: The Looming Threat to Humanity and How to Stop It.

A leader in epidemic prevention and control, Jonathan talks about the diseases we should worry about the most and why, the success stories and lessons learned in responding to epidemic and pandemic outbreaks, and what we need to do to be prepared for the next outbreak.

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October 1, 2018
Discovering new ways to engage youth to prevent violent extremism

Written by
Theo Dolan, Technical Advisor, Civil Society and Peacebuilding, FHI 360

Young people, often the most vulnerable to recruitment by violent extremist groups, play a crucial role in countering and preventing violent extremism. But how can we more effectively focus on youth to reduce violent extremism? To answer this question, we convened a forum on the latest thinking in this rapidly evolving field. The forum, held earlier this year in Washington, DC, was webcast for a global audience.

Kyle Dietrich of Equal Access International, Lauren Van Metre of George Washington University, Dean Piedmont of the Preventing/Countering Violent Extremism Initiative and Joseph Sany of FHI 360 shared new research on and approaches to youth engagement. They covered topics including reorienting radicalization, youth-led approaches to preventing violent extremism, the role of social media and extremist messaging, and the reintegration of foreign terrorist fighters. The participants identified prevention as the most promising opportunity to mitigate violent extremism.

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September 24, 2018
Positive youth development as a pathway to economic empowerment

Written by
Kristin Brady, Youth Technical Director, FHI 360
Shahera Younes, Work Technical Director, FHI 360

The global economic landscape, along with the nature of work, is rapidly changing. More and more people are working outside of a typical office environment and in the gig economy. This is creating new economic opportunities — and challenges. The abilities and aspirations of young people, who now number almost two billion, are often unrealized, especially in the developing world. What is the best way to secure their futures?

We believe that positive youth development interventions can support and empower youth to be more engaged, healthy and productive members of their communities. Meeting young people where they are — whether in person or online — is necessary to build the critical skills and competencies to meet the demands of a growing and evolving economy. Our research shows that positive youth development interventions can facilitate resilience and, when combined with labor market analysis, prepare young people for future employment.

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September 18, 2018
Partnering with a new generation of innovators for social good

Written by
Patrick Fine, Chief Executive Officer, FHI 360

We know we have to do things differently to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. We need new ways of seeing old problems, new skills and methods to direct the technological whirlwind disrupting societies and new ways to muster political will to make hard decisions that challenge old orthodoxies.

There is a paradox here: At a time when innovation is creating destabilizing change, the key to future stability lies in our ability to effectively harness innovation. But what does that look like?

Most innovations are spread through traditional commercial channels where one company either develops or purchases the intellectual property or product of another. Commercializing and scaling new products, particularly in the tech sector, has been the driving force in 21^st century economic growth. It has improved living standards in many parts of the world, but simultaneously produced growing — and potentially destabilizing — inequality.

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September 10, 2018
Preventing and resolving violent conflict

Written by
Patrick Fine, Chief Executive Officer, FHI 360

A decade ago, around 80 percent of the international humanitarian budget went to victims of natural disasters. Now, that number has flipped, with about 80 percent of funding going to victims of violent conflict.

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August 8, 2018
Responding to the largest humanitarian crisis in the world

Written by
Patrick Fine, Chief Executive Officer, FHI 360

Twenty-two million people in Yemen — roughly 4 out of 5 Yemenis — are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance, making this the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. As the conflict enters its fourth year, with little sign of a peace agreement, this complex emergency demands attention and action from the international community.

In this episode of A Deeper Look, I sit down with my colleague Greg Beck, the Director of Crisis Response and Integrated Development here at FHI 360. Greg has recently been working in Yemen.

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August 2, 2018
Two perspectives on the life-changing DREAMS partnership

Written by
Jennine Meyer, Associate Director of Communications, FHI 360

The Determined, Resilient, Empowered, AIDS-free, Mentored and Safe women (DREAMS) partnership aspires to reduce HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women in 10 sub-Saharan African countries. These countries alone accounted for more than half of the HIV infections that occurred among adolescent girls and young women globally in 2015.

DREAMS reaches beyond the health sector to address the direct and indirect factors that increase girls’ HIV risk, such as poverty, gender inequality, sexual violence and inadequate education. Interventions can include paying school fees, providing bicycles to girls who would otherwise walk long distances to school, supplying sanitary napkins for menstrual hygiene management and offering mentoring to help girls avoid early pregnancy, gender-based violence and discrimination. DREAMS is supported by the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Girl Effect, Johnson & Johnson, Gilead Sciences and ViiV Healthcare.

Two young women who participate in DREAMS projects attended FHI 360’s 2018 Gender 360 Summit and discussed how DREAMS is making a difference in their lives. Here are their stories.

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July 25, 2018
Pie in the sky: Does foreign assistance make a difference?

Written by
Patrick Fine, Chief Executive Officer, FHI 360

A full version of this article originally appeared in WorldView, a quarterly magazine published by the nonprofit National Peace Corps Association for the greater Peace Corps community. Reposted with permission. Read the entire article here.

Economic and social progress rarely comes fast, making it easy to question whether foreign assistance is effective. Many critiques of foreign aid expose poorly conceived and implemented programs and document bad governance, corruption, and persistent poverty. Some even argue that far from helping, foreign assistance is part of the problem. I suspect there are few self-conscious development workers who don’t ask themselves whether the treasure, sweat and tears really make a difference, especially those of us who have spent years struggling with the day-to-day management problems and frustrations that come with implementing programs in countries where progress has been slow and uneven.

Recently, I visited the rural community in Swaziland where I worked as a Peace Corps Volunteer 30 years ago. Seeing the changes on the homestead where I lived from 1980 to 1983 helped me put into perspective our often-unsatisfactory efforts to describe and measure the value of development work and to answer the question about whether foreign aid makes a difference.

Read the entire article here.

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July 23, 2018
New journal supplement on key populations is here!

Written by
Rose Wilcher, Director, Research Utilization, FHI 360

A version of this post originally appeared on the LINKAGES blog. Reprinted with permission.

The USAID– and PEPFAR-supported LINKAGES project is excited to announce the arrival of a new supplement in the Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS) titled Optimizing the Impact of Key Population Programming Across the HIV Cascade.

A collaboration among LINKAGES, USAID, CDC, amfAR, and JIAS, this supplement contributes new evidence and data-driven strategies for improving programming with men who have sex with men, sex workers, transgender people and people who inject drugs. It contains 14 original articles that represent a range of multidisciplinary efforts from diverse geographies to advance key population science and practice across the HIV prevention, care and treatment cascade.

As HIV services are scaled up in pursuit of 90-90-90 targets, investments to address the epidemic among key populations must be central to these efforts. Global data indicate that gains made among key populations lag substantially behind those made in the general population. This supplement aims to accelerate progress toward controlling the epidemic by bringing visibility to new evidence and approaches that can make key population programming smarter and more effective.

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