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The health worker shortage in Africa : are enough physicians and nurses being trained?

KINFU, Yohannes
et al
February 2009

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"The health worker shortage in sub-Saharan Africa derives from many causes, yet the dynamics of entry into and exit from the health workforce in many of these countries remain poorly understood. This limits the capacity of national governments and their international development partners to design and implement appropriate intervention programmes. This paper provides some of this information through the first systematic estimates of health worker inflow and outflow in selected sub-Saharan African countries"

Inspiring futures : learning from memory work in Africa

DUNN, Alison
HAMMOND WARD, Sarah
2009

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This learning paper looks at the experiences of applying memory work as part of broader strategies to mitigate the impact of HIV and AIDS in five African countries. It explores how six NGOs in sub-Saharan Africa established memory work as a key component of their community-based HIV programmes and draws on the experience of people living with HIV and AIDS, children and young people who participated in the initiative, partner organisations' own learning and analysis and the end of project evaluation report

The sustainability and impact of school sanitation, water and hygiene education in Kenya

NJUGUNA, Vincent
et al
2009

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This report details a study that investigated the impact and sustainability of school interventions for water, sanitation and hygiene education (WASH) in three districts in Kenya. The key findings of the study are: that sufficient taps for handwashing in toilets result in increased handwashing and cleaner toilets, and toilets that are clean and provide privacy are better used by children

Smart Quiz : an open-source intelligent evaluation tool for any language, subject or ability

MINDFUL INTERACTIVE
2009

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This is a quiz game in Kenyan Sign Language (KSL), designed to inform and educate deaf Kenyans about HIV and AIDS and reproductive health issues. The interface has been kept simple with minimal visual distractions, which makes it suitable for students with very low computer skills. The quiz would be useful for Kenyan schools, HIV and AIDS testing clinics, internet cafes, resource centres and libraries

Keeping the promise : interventions by persons with disabilities against HIV/AIDS

HANDICAP INTERNATIONAL KENYA
2009

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People with disabilities, including people with disabilities who are living with HIV, are often excluded from their community and their family. This video presents testimonies of people with disabilities who are living with HIV and proposes actions in Kenya to fight against their exclusion. For example, it highlights support groups that have been created to educate people with disabilities, living with HIV or not, on sexuality, HIV/AIDS, and how to live positively with disabilities and reduce the stress caused by them. Another section of the video presents a support group for parents of children with disabilities where it is encouraged to talk about sexual abuse and violence on children and prevention of sexually transmitted diseases. Support groups for hearing and visually impaired people are also presented in the video. In addition to support groups, education and prevention are also promoted by through sport and street shows which contribute to the social inclusion of people with disabilities living with HIV

Going to scale with community-led total sanitation : reflections on experience, issues and ways forward

CHAMBERS, Robert
2009

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Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) is a revolutionary approach in which communities are facilitated to conduct their own appraisal and analysis of open defecation and take their own action to become open defecation-free. This report presents CLTS approaches in six countries which differ organisationally with contrasting combinations of NGOs, projects and governments. Practical elements in strategies for going to scale have included: training and facilitating; starting in favourable conditions; conducting campaigns and encouraging competition; recruiting and committing teams and full-time facilitators and trainers; organising workshops and cross-visits; supporting and sponsoring Natural Leaders and community consultants and inspiring and empowering children

 

Practice Paper, Vol 2009, No 1

Antimalarial drug quality in the most severely malarious parts of Africa - a six country study

BATE, Roger
COTICELLI, Philip
TREN, Richard
ATTARAN, Amir
May 2008

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This article describes research conducted on a range of antimalarial drugs, procured from private pharmacies in urban and peri-urban areas in the major cities of six African countries which were subjected to semi-quantitative thin-layer chromatography (TLC) and dissolution testing to measure active pharmaceutical ingredient content against internationally acceptable standards

Improving the education response to HIV and AIDS : Lessons of partner efforts in coordination, harmonisation, alignment, information sharing and monitoring in Jamaica, Kenya, Thailand and Zambia

VISSER-VALFREY, Muriel
March 2008

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This report presents the overall findings from case study exercises carried out in Jamaica, Kenya, Thailand and Zambia to examine the quality, effectiveness and coordination of the education sector's response to the HIV epidemic. The report also makes recommendations for improving coordination across agencies in support of country-level and global actions. The case studies were carried out by the UNAIDS Inter-Agency Task Team on Education

Taking critical services to the home : scaling-up home-based maternal and postnatal care, including family planning, through community midwifery in Kenya

MWANGI, Annie
WARREN, Charlotte
2008

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This publication is the report of a project to scale-up a community-based model, in Kenya, that enabled women to give birth safely at home or be referred to a hospital when attended by a self-employed skilled midwife living in the community. The findings of the project were that community midwifery contributed to increasing the proportion of women assisted by skilled attendants during birth in the four districts in which the scheme was trialed, amounting to just under half of all skilled attended births in the districts. Although the skilled birth attendant rate in these districts was well below the national average of 42 percent, there was a steady increase in the proportion of attended deliveries since CMs were introduced in 2005. The districts also reported an increase in postnatal assessments in the first 48 hours and increase in immunization coverage

Growing pains : how poverty and AIDS are challenging childhood

SWIFT, Anthony
MAHER, Stan
2008

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This report looks at projects and programmes that aim to respond to the needs of very young children in southern and eastern Africa whose lives have been affected by both poverty and HIV. What is highlighted in the interventions that are examined is the effort of human beings in caring and supporting people and sharing resources

Factors shaping attitudes towards physical disability and availability of rehabilitative support systems for disabled people in rural Kenya

MONK, Julie
WEE, Joy
2008

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This study examines the range of attitudes towards persons with physical disability in a rural community in western Kenya. It also evaluates the availability of services for persons with disabilities in the community. Qualitative data analysis of interview material led to the generation of a model describing the attitudes towards people with disabilities. Availability of services was explored through interview questions and document collection. Perceived cause of disability, perceived characteristics and activities of people with disabilities by the community and perceived role of society, appear to shape the attitudes towards people with disabilities in the community studied. The opinions within these categories contribute to enabling and disabling features of the environment in which people with disabilities live. It appears that services available are underused by disabled members of the community due to poor accessibility and financial barriers. The results yielded relatively enabling attitudes towards PWD. The responses suggest that this community may be ready to support increased participation by its members, possibly through a community based rehabilitation programme.

 

Asia Pacific Disability Rehabilitation Journal, Vol 19, No 1

HIV & AIDS awareness and training projects for blind and partially sighted persons in Africa : end of project report

NDUTA, Sally
December 2007

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This is the final report of the HIV & AIDS awareness and training projects for blind and partially sighted persons in Cameroon, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Tanzania. Including a summary of the workshops and trainings conducted across these countries, the aim is to highlight achievements, share research and put forth a set of recommendations about mainstreaming disability issues into HIV & AIDS programmes

Missing the target #5 : improving AIDS drug access and advancing health care for all

INTERNATIONAL TREATMENT PREPAREDNESS COALITION (ITPC)
December 2007

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This report documents how the mobilisation around AIDS is driving health systems advancement in China, Dominican Republic, Zimbabwe, Russia, Kenya, India, Cameroon, Zambia and Cambodia, and it highlights the need for improvements in broader systems of care and services to meet the needs of people living with HIV & AIDS and the communities in which they live. It also considers ARV procurement, registration and stock-outs in Argentina, Belize, Cambodia, China, Dominican Republic, India, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Philippines, Russia, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe

Conceptualizing disability and education in the South : challenges for research

SINGAL, Nidhi
December 2007

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This discussion paper introduces the challenges for designing research methodology for the Disability, Education and Poverty project. The paper explores the relationships between poverty and disability, highlighting disability is a cause and consequence of poverty, and discusses three central challenges for conceptualising the research project
RECOUP Working Paper 10

Early infant diagnosis of HIV through dried blood spot testing

PATHFINDER INTERNATIONAL / KENYA
October 2007

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Until recently the test used to diagnose HIV in babies under one-year has required sophisticated and expensive equipment. A new test has now been developed - dried blood spot testing which can be used to diagnose HIV as early as six weeks after a baby is born and has the advantage of being easy to prepare in a resource-limited setting and shipped to testing facilities without refrigeration. If a baby is given prophylactic antibiotics, such as cotrimoxazole, soon after birth and Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) as soon as is medically indicated, it has a good chance of surviving childhood and living a long, healthy life

Supporting HIV-positive teachers in East and Southern Africa

MALLOURIS, Chrstoforos
BOLER, Tania
September 2007

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This report provides an overview of the impact of HIV on teachers and the specific issues HIV-positive teachers face. It also summarises support mechanisms for teachers with HIV and presents key conclusions and recommendations from the consultation regarding how the education sector can support HIV-positive teachers. The report is the result of a consultation involving a range of different stakeholders including representatives of Ministries of Education, teachers' unions and HIV-positive teachers' networks from six countries in East and Southern Africa

Violence free zone : end school-related violence, prevent HIV/AIDS

SALTER, Nick
SCHECHTMAN, Lisa
September 2007

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The objective of this call to action is to review the extent to which national education plans, the Fast Track Initiative, donor countries, and established international NGOs recognise and comprehensively combat school-related violence (SRV) in a review of 10 African countries. The brief contains five main sections and two Appendices. It outlines the details and consequences of school-related violence; and the major findings and broader trends from the country review process; it focuses on a discussion of models and programs employed to effectively counter SRV and highlights overall best practices; it reviews and critiques donor governments and international agencies in relation to their work on SRV; and it outlines the recommendations and call to action for going to scale with programmes to counter SRV

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