Innovation Countdown 2030 (IC2030), an initiative led by an international nonprofit organization, released its inaugural report on July 13, which features 30 innovations that have the potential to transform global health and save millions of lives by 2030.
The report, Reimagining Global Health, was announced at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa.
IC2030 is led by PATH, the frontrunner when it comes to global health innovation, with support from the Norwegian Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The report involved a yearlong process in which more than 500 innovations were nominated from over 50 countries, with a goal of propelling investment and support for health technologies.
Each innovation was assessed by dozens of international health experts, leading to the 30 that are featured in the report. Each innovation was selected for the potential it has to save lives and transform global health.
The innovations cover four health areas: maternal, newborn and child health, infectious diseases, reproductive health and non-communicable diseases.
The report also includes commentary from leading experts in health, business and technology on the important role innovation plays in driving health impact.
One such expert is Amie Batson, the chief strategy officer for PATH. In the report, she emphasizes four key strategies to help further innovations in global health.
The strategies are: sourcing health solutions globally, pinpointing the most cost-effective innovations, creating new devices concentrating on financing and coordinating investments.
These approaches are seen in PATH’s cost impact modeling process, a feature the nonprofit created with its partner, Applied Strategies.
Specifically, the model measures how many lives are saved, the number of cases of disease avoided, and the costs for health innovations.
Two innovations seen in the report and evaluated with PATH’s cost impact modeling process have to do with preventing infections in newborns and stopping diarrheal disease from contaminated water from reaching children.
Chlorhexidine is a low-cost antiseptic used in umbilical cord care to prevent infections in newborns. Every year, thousands of newborns die as a result of unsanitary conditions during birth and not having access to antiseptics for the first week after being born.
Chlorhexidine, which comes in liquid and gel form, can be applied to the umbilical cord stump after birth at a safe and effective concentration. By doing so, the chance of infection is greatly reduced.
More importantly, health workers or family members can use the antiseptic at home.
It’s estimated that, by using Chlorhexidine, 1,004,000 neonatal lives can be saved between 2015 and 2030, with a nine percent reduction in deaths caused by sepsis. A scaled-up use of the antiseptic is expected to cost $81 million.
The second innovation has to do with preventing diarrheal disease in children by using chlorine to disinfect water in small communities.
Developing countries often have shortages in clean water, as not only are most public water systems inadequate, but many households don’t have the necessary resources to purchase treated water.
As a result, new tools have been developed to disinfect water at sources in small-scale communities. One such tool, the Zimba automated batch chlorinator, fits on hand pumps and community taps, and chlorinates the water with no need for electricity or moving parts.
The device has the capability to disinfect up to 8,000 liters of water before the chlorine dispenser needs to be refilled.
Estimates show that, by chlorinating water in small-scale communities, 1,515,000 child lives will be saved, with a 16 percent reduction in diarrhea-related deaths. In addition, the disinfecting devices will save $1.2 billion because of the decrease in the number of cases of diarrheal disease, leading to a reduction in treatment costs.
Moving forward, PATH wants to build on IC2030 to give a greater voice to global innovators. The organization also wants to engage experts from different subject matters and raise awareness and visibility about possible lifesaving innovations.
– Matt Wotus
Sources: PATH, PR Newswire, The IC2030 Report
Photo: Flickr
Hash-Tagging to Raise Awareness for The Global Goals
Trending hashtags can sometimes be confusing and pointless. Usually, hashtags accompany a picture on Instagram or a tweet on Twitter and sometimes they are associated with different challenges. But, every once in a while, a hashtag will emerge and correlate with a worthy cause, and using it on social media will raise awareness for that cause.
The hashtag, #DizzyGoals, is raising awareness for The Global Goals one video at a time. #DizzyGoals requires a person to spin as quickly as possible around a soccer ball 13 times and then attempt a penalty shot. Many professional soccer players have accepted the challenge, including Gareth Bale of Real Madrid, whose video featured some of his friends and teammates.
Less than a month away, the Global Goals launch on September 25 in New York City with 193 world leaders in attendance, and the campaign is doing everything in its power to raise international awareness and support of the goals. The Global Goals are dedicated to ending global poverty, fighting injustice and correcting climate change through a set of 17 initiatives for the next 15 years.
Before world leaders commit themselves to the goals, however, citizens around the world must know about them. World leaders listen to citizens to understand what needs to be done; the more people that know about the goals, the more likely the world leaders are to support them.
Therefore, it is imperative that the Global Goals become famous amongst world citizens and #DizzyGoals is one entertaining way to do that.
Many of the videos that accompany the hashtag feature professional soccer players spinning rapidly around a soccer ball, and then stumbling to kick the next ball, where the inevitable dizziness usually results in an epic fall to the grass. Nonetheless, the stars of the challenge are sure to mention their support for the Global Goals and provide links to goals’ website.
The Global Goals have the power to positively change the world. Share a #DizzyGoals video to inform more people about the Global Goals, or grab a soccer ball and take the challenge!
– Sarah Sheppard
Sources: Global Citizen, Global Goals, Twitter,
Photo: Express
Innovative Policies that Spur Growth and Reduce Poverty
A handful of standard policies have been used throughout the world over many decades to attempt to decrease poverty. However, poverty is still a massive problem worldwide. It is also known that healthy economic growth is vital to reducing poverty. What are some new, innovative policies that can be used more widely in conjunction with existing policies to maximize poverty reduction and spur economic growth?
One of the most well-known innovative systems of reducing poverty has been the microcredit or microfinance system that has been perpetuated throughout areas with high densities of impoverished people. Bill Gates has said that he believes that providing more access to mobile banking (an extension of the ideas behind microfinance), will have huge impacts on the way the poor deal with money and will help reduce poverty.
Many innovative new policies are aimed at specific demographics in order to fully leverage the investment in a way that affects the poor best. For example, many of the poor live in rural areas and are involved in agriculture.
Due to the large role of agriculture in many impoverished people’s lives, one organization named Katalyst gives out small packets of high-quality seeds to farmers in Bangladesh. The result? Incomes for these farmers increased on the whole by over 300 million dollars.
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has begun to fund proven methods of development. Two programs, one from Colombia and one from Haiti are being funded by the UNDP. Both programs focused on job training and development for people in vulnerable areas of the respective countries.
A third program was aimed at helping the government of Laos address the infrastructure concerns and problems in local areas, which eventually helped over 300,000 people to get better goods and services as well as local infrastructure.
Another idea which is incredibly simple is now being more widely accepted as a method that would prove valuable. Give poor people money. Giving unrestricted cash transfers to the poor has not been a popular policy in the past because many fear that the money would be wasted on nonessential goods or illegal activities.
However, a study based on a model like this was done in Uganda and resulted in a 38 percent increase in wages by the end of the study in the group that was given the unrestricted cash transfers. In addition, hours worked and business assets both increased significantly. The myth that the money would simply be wasted via this simplistic approach seems to be being dispelled.
Most of these ideas are not based on some new understanding of poverty. The existing rationale behind each one is held in commonly held knowledge about the different attributes of poverty and those in poverty.
The innovations are creative ways of tackling the most basic traits of the impoverished, unemployment (specific job training centers), lack of money (unrestricted cash transfers), and giving high quality seed packets (agriculture as a means of income).
By addressing these known factors in new ways, these policies have proven to be of use in the instances they were used, and should be more widely spread across the globe to help increase the rate of poverty reduction.
– Martin Yim
Sources: OCED Insights, United Nations, Social Science Research Network
Photo: CNN
UN Funds Humanitarian Efforts in Central African Republic
On August 11, the United Nations Common Humanitarian Fund allocated $13.2 million to humanitarian efforts in the Central African Republic (CAR) in order to provide much needed life-saving aid to those affected by the ongoing conflict in the African country.
The funds will go toward supporting local humanitarian aid agencies that provide clean drinking water, access to education and healthcare, food, protection, and shelter to vulnerable and displaced people. Though the amount of funds will provide some people with necessary help, it is not nearly what is needed to be able to provide aid for the entire population in need.
“Thanks to donors who have contributed in 2015, this CHF allocation allows humanitarian partners to continue helping thousands of displaced people and host families,” said Aurélien Agbénonci, the UN’s Humanitarian Coordinator in the African country. “However, it is only three percent of the $415 million we still need by the end of the year if we are to save more lives and reach all people in acute need in 2015.”
The Civil War in the Central African Republic between the Muslim Séléka alliance and the anti-Balaka militias with CAR government forces, which are predominantly Christian, began at the end of 2012 and has claimed many civilian lives and displaced many more. Additionally, the Lord’s Resistance Army continues operations within the southeastern region of the country.
According to the United Nations Office of the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), as of June 2015, there are about 463,400 refugees from the Central African Republic, and 368,900 internally displaced people. In total, OCHA concludes that there are presently 2.7 million people in the Central African Republic who are in critical need of humanitarian aid.
Unfortunately, the CAR is reportedly “one of the most difficult and dangerous environments in the world for aid workers.” On July 22, the UN condemned a surge of violence against aid workers along with the July 18 attack on a World Food Program food convoy which left a driver dead.
It is crucial that international humanitarian aid organizations continue to demonstrate their commitment to aiding those in need. The UN’s latest allocation of funds, though not sufficient to provide for every single victim, sent the right message. Aid organizations must never falter in the effort to protect and preserve the lives of innocent civilians, even in the face of danger.
– Jaime Longoria
Sources: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, UN News Centre 1, UN News Centre 2
Photo: UN News Centre
Middle Eastern Migrants Well-Received in Serbia
As Middle Eastern migrants travel to Western Europe, many must make the voyage across the Balkan Peninsula. Hundreds of migrants, half of whom are from Syria and Afghanistan, stop in Belgrade, Serbia as a jumping-off point into Hungary. The majority of migrants claim to be headed to Germany, while some say they plan on arriving in Sweden.
Around 500-700 people take up temporary residence in Belgrade’s parks near the city’s central transportation lines. Here, they generally wait 2 days for transport into Hungary. As they wait, they battle temperatures nearing 100 degrees Fahrenheit and a lack of supplies.
A total of 60,000 migrants have entered Serbia through Macedonia and Bulgaria during the first six months of the year though it is speculated that the numbers could indeed be higher.
Fortunately, Serbian organizations, restaurants, and people have begun distributing aid. Mikes House, a cultural and designer house, has distributed water, food and clothes. Residents of the city have also begun to gift old clothing along with water. Many simply come to speak to migrants and share stories.
On April 12, Belgrade authorities began to park water tanks in the parks and have organized services to clean the parks and rid them of garbage.
Médecins Sans Frontières has also started providing general healthcare to the migrants as their journeys take a brief pause in the northern Balkans.
All of this comes at a time when Europe as a whole experiences major surges in migration due to one of history’s largest refugee crises. Germany, in particular, has had to raise its projected influx from 450,000 at the beginning of 2015 to a projected 800,000 by the end of the year.
As a contingency plan, on August 10 the European Commission approved 2.4 billion euros of aid for the next six-year period, in the hopes that it may help curb the strain many countries will be feeling as migrants begin to settle within state borders.
– Jaime Longoria
Sources: BBC, Reuters, Ukraine Today
Photo: BBC
New Zealand Gang Feeds Children
Jamie Pink, the president of the organization, called Kai 4 the Future, knows what it is like to grow up in poverty. As a child, he barely ever had enough food for himself. When he grew to be an adult, he knew he wanted to do something about it. Although he does admit he likes violence, he says he liked helping people even more.
Now, Tribal Huk leases fifty acres of farmland around Horotiu and Ngaruawahia, and owns dozens of beef, sheep and pigs. Some animals are sold to finance the foundation while the rest go in the sandwiches.
In New Zealand, 270,000 children live below the poverty line, according to the country’s Children’s Commissioner. Although the government has implemented a $9.5 million program in the last couple of years to help solve the problem, children remain hungry.
Pink laments that New Zealand has enough water, food and other resources- sheep even outnumber people ten to one- to support their population, but children are still going hungry. He hopes to get government assistance so the gang can make even more sandwiches every day.
He is also hoping to start a new trust in which people donate just $5 a week to the Foundation. If 50,000 people pay this amount for a year, they would collect $30 million – enough to feed every hungry child in the country.
– Radhika Singh
Sources: Stuff, RadioNZ
Photo: Stuff
New Report Casts Light on Global Health Innovations
Innovation Countdown 2030 (IC2030), an initiative led by an international nonprofit organization, released its inaugural report on July 13, which features 30 innovations that have the potential to transform global health and save millions of lives by 2030.
The report, Reimagining Global Health, was announced at the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa.
IC2030 is led by PATH, the frontrunner when it comes to global health innovation, with support from the Norwegian Agency for Development and Cooperation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID).
The report involved a yearlong process in which more than 500 innovations were nominated from over 50 countries, with a goal of propelling investment and support for health technologies.
Each innovation was assessed by dozens of international health experts, leading to the 30 that are featured in the report. Each innovation was selected for the potential it has to save lives and transform global health.
The innovations cover four health areas: maternal, newborn and child health, infectious diseases, reproductive health and non-communicable diseases.
The report also includes commentary from leading experts in health, business and technology on the important role innovation plays in driving health impact.
One such expert is Amie Batson, the chief strategy officer for PATH. In the report, she emphasizes four key strategies to help further innovations in global health.
The strategies are: sourcing health solutions globally, pinpointing the most cost-effective innovations, creating new devices concentrating on financing and coordinating investments.
These approaches are seen in PATH’s cost impact modeling process, a feature the nonprofit created with its partner, Applied Strategies.
Specifically, the model measures how many lives are saved, the number of cases of disease avoided, and the costs for health innovations.
Two innovations seen in the report and evaluated with PATH’s cost impact modeling process have to do with preventing infections in newborns and stopping diarrheal disease from contaminated water from reaching children.
Chlorhexidine is a low-cost antiseptic used in umbilical cord care to prevent infections in newborns. Every year, thousands of newborns die as a result of unsanitary conditions during birth and not having access to antiseptics for the first week after being born.
Chlorhexidine, which comes in liquid and gel form, can be applied to the umbilical cord stump after birth at a safe and effective concentration. By doing so, the chance of infection is greatly reduced.
More importantly, health workers or family members can use the antiseptic at home.
It’s estimated that, by using Chlorhexidine, 1,004,000 neonatal lives can be saved between 2015 and 2030, with a nine percent reduction in deaths caused by sepsis. A scaled-up use of the antiseptic is expected to cost $81 million.
The second innovation has to do with preventing diarrheal disease in children by using chlorine to disinfect water in small communities.
Developing countries often have shortages in clean water, as not only are most public water systems inadequate, but many households don’t have the necessary resources to purchase treated water.
As a result, new tools have been developed to disinfect water at sources in small-scale communities. One such tool, the Zimba automated batch chlorinator, fits on hand pumps and community taps, and chlorinates the water with no need for electricity or moving parts.
The device has the capability to disinfect up to 8,000 liters of water before the chlorine dispenser needs to be refilled.
Estimates show that, by chlorinating water in small-scale communities, 1,515,000 child lives will be saved, with a 16 percent reduction in diarrhea-related deaths. In addition, the disinfecting devices will save $1.2 billion because of the decrease in the number of cases of diarrheal disease, leading to a reduction in treatment costs.
Moving forward, PATH wants to build on IC2030 to give a greater voice to global innovators. The organization also wants to engage experts from different subject matters and raise awareness and visibility about possible lifesaving innovations.
– Matt Wotus
Sources: PATH, PR Newswire, The IC2030 Report
Photo: Flickr
Vaccinating the Masses
Every year, children squirm awaiting the dreaded shot, vaccinating them from the clutches of the dreaded flu. We’ve become accustomed to this process over the years, but the reality is that this tedious cycle may be coming to an end with new medical advancements on the horizon.
The world’s first universal vaccine may be right around the corner. Researchers at Rockefeller University are working to develop a new type of vaccine that, according to the Times of India will, “harness a previously unknown mechanism within the immune system to create more effective and efficient vaccines against this virus which may ultimately result in a vaccine that provides life-long immunity against flu infections.”
The vaccine operates by targeting all varieties of flu strains and utilizes modified antibodies.
These new antibodies are being formulated to target flu strains that often are not treated by standard vaccines. An article in EurekAlert examined the science behind this bold undertaking by scientists.
“Work in the Ravetch lab suggests a new alternative: chemical modifications to the Fc region of antibodies. These regions go on to form complexes with vaccine antigens, which then modulate the evolving vaccine response,” reads an excerpt from EurekaAlert.
Essentially, once the new vaccine is administered to the patient, it continually evolves to combat any future flu strains that may arise in the patient.
The possibility of a universal flu vaccine being only years away would revolutionize world health. By only needing to be administered once, the vaccine could be distributed all over the world.
This would allow for those in poverty to receive vaccination and have life-long immunity. Mortality rates all over the world would decrease incrementally with life-long vaccination a reality.
– Diego Catala
Sources: Eurekalert, Times of India
Photo: Google Images
Garbage Crisis in Lebanon
Additionally, amid concerns of overfilling, the government has closed the country’s largest landfill and has not established any coping measures. As a result, the streets of Lebanese cities have been riddled with trash and waste.
The politics of Lebanon is based on a power-sharing structure amongst the various religious sects. While representative of the population, the country is susceptible to situations such as this as consensus can be difficult to achieve.
The capital of Beirut is home to over half the total Lebanese population and is the epicenter of the waste buildup. The situation has gotten so out of hand that citizens have begun burning trash in the streets. The fumes from burnt trash can contain toxic chemicals and create their own set of serious health concerns.
Calling the situation a “major health disaster,” The country’s Health Minister, Wael Abu Faour, has called for the government officials to end the gridlock and fix the escalating garbage crisis in Lebanon.
Citizens have begun to mobilize and take to the streets to voice their objections to the trash as well as the government. Movements have adopted the slogan “You Stink” as a literal and figurative metaphor for the government and the situation they have created.
“You Stink” organizers have begun using social media outlets to pass information and spread the word on protests. Recently, a protest of over 20,000 civilians took place in Beirut. However, police suppressed the protestors with billy clubs and fire hoses. A litany of footage documenting police violence has been uploaded to Twitter, Facebook and Youtube.
“You Stink” protesters hope that the utilization of the internet and social media will raise awareness to the international community. With the added attention, organizers hope their Lebanese government will face mounting pressure to proactively solve this crisis.
The protests and concerns have certainly caught the attention of Prime Minister Tammam Salam. In a televised speech, he stated, “The trash issue was the straw that broke the camel’s back, but the story is larger, much larger than this straw, and it is the story of the political trash in the country.”
– The Borgen Project
Sources: New York Times 1, Huffington Post, New York Times 2, LA Times
Photo: New York Times
A Bright Future for Kenyan Slums with Addition of Electricity
In our homes and about our daily lives, we do not place a schedule around the daylight hours; with a generous supply of electricity, we can be productive at any time.
We neglect to think about the children who cannot finish their homework each night, the markets which cannot operate in the evenings, the businesses which can’t get off the ground or the schools and clinics which fail to provide the most basic services in areas without electricity, laments a video by the World Bank which describes the harsh reality of living in such circumstances.
When we think of places that have no electricity, often images of remote villages come to mind, but surprisingly, many of those who are lacking access to power are those living in urban slums.
Two years ago in the slums of Nairobi, as many as two million people lived in “informal settlements” which were not equipped with power, or if they were, they were unsafe, unreliable and illegal connections prone to catching fire or causing electrocutions sold by local cartels. This unsafe environment was not desirable and for any change to occur, the Kenyan community would have to embrace the notion of safe and affordable electricity.
At first community members were skeptical of Kenya Power, Kenya’s national utility which focused on taking down illegal connections in the slums from 2011-2013. Community members associated Kenya Power with dismantling their source of electricity, despite how unsafe it may be they were unhappy, often putting up another illegal connection within days.
Kenya Power adapted a community approach and conversed with people, opting to leave the illegal connections alone and just focus on providing safe electricity. In just one year, the number of legal connections would grow from just 5,000 in May 2014 to 150,000 and counting in May 2015.
With the reliability and affordability of such a system in place, its usage has become contagious, “Most consumers use pay-as-you-go scheme, buying pre-paid chits, available at any corner store, and paying for electricity in small increments.
In fact, many of the former vendors of illegal electricity are now in the (legal) business of selling Kenya Power chits,” says the World Bank, which provides funding for Kenya Power and also offers a South-South Knowledge exchange including Kenyan workers and experts from utilities in Brazil, Colombia and South Africa.
Support from the Global Partnership on Output-Based Aid and World Bank’s Energy Sector Management Assistance Program are also a part of the given support and part of a much larger $330 million World Bank project to help Kenya Power expand, modernize and light up its cities’ slums.
– Nikki Schaffer
Sources: World Bank, Kenya Power
Photo: World Bank
Rwandan Parliament Seeks to Increase Maternity Coverage
Throughout the spring, the bill moved through parliament but was temporarily tabled in the House because of other pressing issues. Members of parliament are set to discuss this important legislation in the next few weeks, though, according to an article in Equal Times.
Because of the current system, many Rwandan women on maternity leave return to the workplace after just six weeks because they cannot afford to lose 80 percent of their compensation for that time.
Minister of Finance and Economic Planning Claver Gatete said that the current plan is not conducive to supporting a mother and her child both socially and financially.
The new legislation will have employers compensating mothers for the first six weeks and a social security fund covering compensation for the second six weeks. As an insurance scheme rather than a government fund, the additional compensation will come from a new income tax.
Public and private sector employees will make a 0.6 percent contribution of their salary to the insurance scheme in order to cover the costs of this fund. Contributions are set to be taken through the existing Rwanda Social Security Board, but the scheme funds are set to be distinct from other social security funds.
There is widespread support throughout Rwanda for this legislation, many calling this bill “long overdue.” Dominique Bicamumpaka, president of the Congrés du Travail et de la Fraternité — Rwanda (CONTRAF) was quoted in Equal Times, explaining her and other campaigners’ support for this legislation.
“[CONTRAF was] involved in the whole process and we encourage all the citizens to embrace this new initiative wholeheartedly because when a woman gives birth, it is not only for the family but also for the society,” she said.
If adopted, this bill will improve living conditions for mothers and their newborns, while also giving mothers more value and credibility in Rwandan society.
Many Rwandans consider this legislation a major step toward improving working conditions for women throughout the country. However, advocates such as Andre Mutsindashyaka, secretary general of the Rwanda Extractive Industry Workers Union, hope that this is just the first step of many other adjustments in making the workplace more mother-friendly.
“We are trying to make it easier for mothers, especially that nursing, by finding ways how they can work but also look after their babies,” he was quoted in Equal Times.
“So far, there is a plan that we hope to launch in five years, which will see each office have a daycare centre where mothers can breastfeed their babies. So far, some places like [the Rwandan Tea Authority] are providing [daycare facilities] and we hope that eventually, every office can do the same.”
– Arin Kerstein
Photo: Flickr