Early Warning Systems are Not Just for Earthquakes

When political crises happen or human rights are being destroyed, the use of smart phones and other technology to spread the word is critical. What about when natural disasters strike? When a family has minutes to evacuate before a tsunami wipes out their village, do they take a picture or tweet about it? No. But the World Health Organization, in cooperation with national and local governments, and by demand of citizens in crisis and an outcry for better preventative measures, is working on building better early warning systems for post-disaster epidemics. The technology? A boat, a bike, your boots. Also needed: a pencil, paper, and your determination.

Recently in the Solomon Islands the immense destructive forces of the 6 February 2013 8.0 magnitude earthquake and pursuant 3m tsunami left thousands of people without homes and brought down the health care system.

The Solomon Islands consist of 1,000 islands off the South Pacific and are home to 550,000 people. The destructive power of the February earthquake left thousands vulnerable to diseases due to the broken health care system. 5500 residents required temporary living shelters. These shelters are often plagued by poor sanitation due to lack of resources and cramped living quarters. Poor sanitation leads to a plethora of preventable diseases—most of which associated with diarrhea.

Taking a queue from the early warning systems set up to warn of impending natural disaster, the World Health Organization worked with the Ministry of Health of the Solomon Islands to set up an early warning system to identify outbreaks, unusual outbreak patterns, and the number of people affected. This is a critical step towards disaster recovery and decreasing the vulnerability of those affected.

Developing the surveillance system presented logistical challenges of connecting vulnerable people to health clinics. Five clinics were set up around Santa Cruz, the main island that was affected. The head nurses, “doubled as boat captains,” connected patients to clinics. Traveling from surveillance sites to the clinics is risky. Poor weather, no lights on the boats, dangerous landing sites and navigational skill are all impediments to the surveillance system. For Solomon Islanders, these risks are necessarily overcome because full coverage is absolutely necessary for the system to work.

The WHO works with the clinics to make sure all the information necessary to identifying and preventing large-scale outbreaks is included in an accessible way. The successful system, now fully functional, has collected data, identified risky areas, and has quickly responded to problems.

The WHO initiative in the Solomon Islands is not unique and neither is their geography. There are 52 developing island nations in the world. These nations carry a disproportionate risk imposed by earthquakes and tsunamis and break down of health systems. Early warning health systems are a part of a larger global strategy to minimize post-natural disaster vulnerability. The WHO works with governments to create a Global Risk and Response system. The main activities include working with governments to set up early warning systems and develop laboratory capacities to handle large amounts of biological material—all of which requires bio-security to keep potential diseases from escaping. Training for and building response strategy plans is also a main function of the WHO’s Global Alert and Response (GAR) system. Seasonally, the GAR supports governments in climate related disease preparedness and creates standardized approaches to climate related diseases such as influenza and malaria.

- Katherine Zobre

Sources: Wikipedia, WHO , WHO
Photo: Global Bhasin

DHL in Africa

Ken Allen, CEO of DHL, has a lot to celebrate:  business in Africa is booming. DHL is in business to make a profit. Luckily for Africa, their business is working out the logistics of connecting frontiers of business to demanding consumers. The numbers for Africa make it an extremely appealing continent in terms of frontiers: there is a 2:1 inbound ratio. As export/import experts, DHL fits right in. They have an office in most countries and offices in all major cities. They partner with retail and other outlets to take advantage of expanding networks.

It is not all smooth sailing for DHL in Africa. There are still the issues of navigating through many countries without clearly marked street signs and the prevalent corruption. Allen responds that DHL has been in Africa for 25-30 years. The logistics of getting around in a place without street signs has been worked out: DHL flies their planes into Legos, for example, then uses smaller DHL carriers to get to regional destinations. As for the corruption, DHL is not a government watch-dog. They are in business to do business. Allen states that most officials see DHL as a positive force and corruption is stronger in perception than in reality. Their role is not to question or change the strict customs regulations, but to interface on behalf of their customers and the regulations to make the transactions as smooth as possible. The goal of DHL is to build the best architecture to make it easy to do business.

- Katherine Zobre

Source: CNN
Photo: Mwebantu

India: Unseized Opportunity

Recent articles have been calling attention to the success of China in reducing the number of her citizens living in extreme poverty, a line demarcated at earnings of less than $1.50 a day. Today, 680 million fewer Chinese live below the extreme poverty line than did thirty years ago. This drastic reduction is largely attributed to the massive urbanization China has undergone since the 80’s, with millions of impoverished rural Chinese moving to cities to seek out jobs, mainly in manufacturing. And while these workers may now still live in poverty, they at least now are above the extreme poverty line.

So what then is going wrong with China’s neighbor across the Himalayas? India today has nearly the same number of impoverished citizens as it did thirty years ago, 400 million. And while that may be a drop in percentage, as India’s population has boomed, it doesn’t exactly represent a giant leap forward.

China and India have paralleled each other for some time with regards to population, but that reflection is at an end, with China’s population now trending downwards, while India’s continues to rise. So is India poised to become the next China and take over manufacturing duties for the world? It is true that there’s a shift occurring in China. The labor force is shrinking while wages increase, and as the country continues to increase its global economic presence many manufacturing jobs in China will soon be moving elsewhere. Cumbersome bureaucracy, however, and a lack of suitable firms and factories, may prevent India from competing for these 85 million manufacturing jobs. Other Southeast Asian countries already have the infrastructure in place and are absorbing some of the demand for cheap manufactured goods as China’s economy shifts. India is in danger of missing out or being bypassed as this opportunity presents itself.

The size of India’s workforce is poised to surpass that of China within the next few years. The question that lingers though is whether these millions will have somewhere to turn. India could well experience the next boom and emulate the growth of China, but the necessary reforms have been slow in coming.

The opportunity is there, but it’s anyone’s guess whether ‘Made in China’ will become ‘Made in India’ anytime soon.

- David Wilson

Sources: The Economist
Photo: IBT

British Panel Plans to End Global Poverty by 2030

Last Wednesday, British prime minister David Cameron announced a few recommendations for ending global poverty by 2030. Improving life for the more than one billion people that live on less than $1.25 a day would include provision of drinking water, electricity, health care, and schools.

Cameron reported that ending global poverty “can and should be one of the great achievements of our time. It is doable”. As a co-chair of the high-level panel that will recommend the best ways to combat global poverty, the British prime minister hopes to improve the U. N. Millennium Development Goals that expire in 2015. These goals included ensuring accessibility to elementary school education, stopping HIV/AIDS, increasing access to clean water and sanitation, as well as reduction of maternal and child mortality through healthcare.

These goals, however, Cameron says, didn’t place enough emphasis on the effects of conflict and violence. Building strong institutions and enforcing law were overlooked in the Millennium Development Goals, and the panel hopes to remedy this by promoting “good governance and private enterprise, investment, and entrepreneurship.” The main focus for ending global poverty is economic growth in the private sector.

Cameron also highlights corruption and how tackling it as well as holding governments accountable are “the golden thread of development.” These reforms in conjunction with those such as food and water provisions, healthcare, and education accessibility could allow a swift eradication of global poverty by the year 2030.

- Sarah Rybak

Source: Montreal Gazette
Photo: Guardian

How to Build a Telecentre – Interview With Pakistan’s PlanWel CEO

PLANWEL is an NGO in Pakistan that is short for Planning Professionals for Social Welfare Works. It was founded in 1990 by a group of local technology and business experts for the purpose of promoting basic computer literacy, information sharing, health care, e-government, e-commerce, and e-learning through telecentres, or what they call community access points. Telecentres are public places which provide access to Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) which help promote development for populations who otherwise would not have such access.

In the past 20 years or so, PlanWel has collaborated with several foreign entities such as Utah State University, Kansas State University, American Distance Learning Consortium, International Telecommunication Union, USAID, and World View Foundation – Malaysia. To date, PlanWel has contributed to the formation of over 400 telecentres all over Pakistan. PlanWel’s mission statement is, “Bringing Technology to the People, Building Technology Based Communities, and Technology for the People and Run by the People”. PlanWel is one of the many examples of telecentre programs that are working to improve lives by providing access to ICTs.

Generally, telecentres are located in rural areas of the developing world. According to the Telecentre.org Foundation , there are over 87,513 telecentres in over 53 countries. In this interview, the PlanWel CEO, Shahab Afroz Khan, talks about how to build a telecentre.

What do the telecentres look like?

“In fact they are not at all fancy. In a rural setting it would be a one room to two room building with some space for housing 5-10 PCs’s at the maximum, one Printer, Scanner, Fax Machine. Internet connectivity through Fiber lines – DSL (In Pakistan we have a very well connected Fiber Optic network). For power, if it’s not on the National Grid , we have it by solar energy. One teacher would teach the students – Typically he is the Owner/ Manager, who would earn his living through this.

The only missing element – AND most important is content in local language – which we are still looking for and working on.”

What advice would you give on how to build a telecentre community?

“First of all, motivate the community and tell them what they are missing: Information about business, citizen’s information, money transactions, sharing of information, and computer literacy. Once they are convinced that there is a need to open up a telecentre, they need to try and get some type of support from important local people, such as landlord, local government representative, and the like. This is important because in many countries like in Pakistan, you must have local support.

It is also absolutely necessary to have your own building – one room of 14ft X 10ft would be sufficient. You cannot run a telecentre on rented space. Next locate some donors to give you the hardware – this is the easiest part as the donor would like his name to be advertised – which you can do with some caution.”

- Maria Caluag

Source: PLANWEL, Telecentre.org
Photo: LawaOnline