Weekending Sunday, 3 February 2008

AFRICA-BASED GROUP BEGINS CLINICAL TRIALS OF MALARIA VACCINE

28 JANUARY 2007[MEDIAGLOBAL]: The African Malaria Network Trust (AMANET) will begin clinical trials of the new malaria vaccine candidate MSP3-LSP this month. Of the millions of deaths from malaria worldwide each year, over 90 percent are in Africa, and one in five childhood deaths on the continent is caused by the disease. While there are drugs available to effectively treat malaria, weak healthcare systems in Africa mean that treatment often does not reach those most in need. “The development of a vaccine would be a huge step,” Dr. Zarifah Reed, the focal point for malaria vaccine research at the World Health Organization (WHO) told MediaGlobal. “For these types of diseases that affect people who have the hardest time getting medical care, a vaccine is the best tool.” Scientists have been working to develop a malaria vaccine for over 30 years, and while it has proven a difficult and complex task, several recent developments, such as the MSP3-LSP vaccine, are showing great promise. After initial testing in Europe, AMANET sponsored and coordinated recent trials of the vaccine in Africa, first in adults in Burkina Faso, and now in children, the eventual target demographic, in both Burkina Faso and Tanzania. This African involvement in the process, says Dr. Charles Wanga of AMANET, is key in its success. “It cannot be said enough that malaria is largely an African problem requiring strong African leadership and ownership in its prevention, control and eventual eradication,” Wanga told MediaGlobal. “Without national and local commitment to strengthening malaria vaccine research capacity, an effective malaria vaccine may never be produced and tested, or, if it is, may not be the one that benefits those Africans who need it most.”

CADBURY AND UNDP PIONEER INNOVATIVE PARTNERSHIP TO AID COCOA FARMERS IN GHANA

28 JANUARY 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Cadbury, the world’s leading confectionary company, has teamed up with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to secure sustainable livelihoods for the approximately 800,000 cocoa farmers in Ghana who produce much of Cadbury’s cocoa supply. “The whole notion of close collaboration between the public and private sector to address economic, social as well as environmental development issues is still relatively new,” Casper Sonesson, Policy Advisor for the Private Sector Division of UNDP told MediaGlobal. “[But] increasingly, both the private sector and the public sector are recognizing that they need each other to achieve their respective objectives.” While the private sector needs to address issues of economic development, both to meet the demands of their consumers and to ensure their continued ability to effectively deliver quality products, they often lack the expertise required to accomplish this. In the case of Cadbury, the company will provide US$2 million in seed funding for the project, with annual funding levels reaching US$10 million by 2010. The company will work closely with both UNDP and the Ghanaian government, making use of their local expertise and knowledge of development-related issues, to plan strategies for how the money can most effectively benefit the farmers. “We are hopeful that this will result in long-term sustainable positive change for the farmers in Ghana,” Sonesson told MediaGlobal. “By strengthening and improving the capacity, skills and overall conditions of the farmers, we believe that the existing market link with Cadbury will be further strengthened, and it will also make the cocoa farmers more competitive in general, which will allow them to also access other markets [and] large buyers of cocoa, which can further contribute to raising their incomes and improving their lives.”

PROGRESS SHOWN IN THE REDUCTION OF CHILD MORTALITY RATES, REPORTS UNICEF

28 JANUARY 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: While child mortality rates are still high, a new report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) shows that since 1990, 61 countries have reduced their death rates by at least 50 percent. Of the 191 countries surveyed in the 2008 State of the World’s Children Report, 129 are on track to meet the fourth Millennium Development Goal (MDG), which calls for a two-thirds reduction of under-five deaths by 2015. However, there are still regions in the world that are not on track to meet the goal. “A child born in sub-Saharan Africa in 2006 has a one in six chance of dying before his or her fifth birthday,” reports UNICEF. Moreover, more than 80 percent of all under-five deaths in 2006 were in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia. Noting that there is no one reason for the lack of progress in these regions, Olivia Lawe-Davies of the World Health Organization (WHO), told MediaGlobal, “The key factors are poverty and underdevelopment, particularly weak health systems, including a lack of health workers and underutilization of existing resources. In many parts of the world, unfortunately, this is further exacerbated by major issues such as conflict and HIV/AIDS, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa.” With the publication of the report, UNICEF called for a number of interventions, noting that most of the deaths are from preventable causes, and asked for a scaling-up of existing community-based health services.

2008 CHAMPION OF THE EARTH RECEIVES AWARD FOR WORK IN SUDAN

28 JANUARY 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Balgis Osman-Elasha, a senior researcher at Sudan’s Higher Council for Environment and Natural Resources, was honored for her work on climate change and adaptation in the Sudan. The award further recognized her efforts in educating Sudanese university students about climate change and raising awareness of the issue. “I think it is the diversity of the work I am doing that cuts across the different levels: global, regional and national,” Osman-Elasha told MediaGlobal, “That spurred UNEP to award me the prize.” Her work comes at a vital time for the nation as the links between climate change and conflict within the Sudan and its war-torn Darfur region have become a major concern. Osman-Elasha is also a leading member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). “My work involved both the generation of information, through research and assessments, and the communication of information and knowledge through education, training, publishing and creating awareness,” Osman-Elasha said. Over the past seven years, she has traveled to 45 countries and given over 100 lectures.

INTERCULTURAL DIALOGUE CAN PROMOTE BOTH UNDERSTANDING AND DEVELOPMENT, SAYS UNESCO

30 JANUARY 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Dialogue between governments and local communities is key to the preservation of both the cultural and environmental wealth of developing nations, says Rochella Roca-Hachem, Program Specialist for Culture at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in New York. “When we have communities that are trying to develop, we need to have a dialogue taking place,” Roca-Hachem told MediaGlobal at this week’s expert meeting on intercultural and interfaith dialogue in New York. “Governments need to work with local communities,” she said, and they must “understand who these people are, what they’re doing [and] what they can contribute.” Projects such as UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites are especially valuable in such efforts because their success relies on the preservation of both the environment and local cultures. In this way, World Heritage Sites not only promote increased global understanding and insight into other cultures, they can also potentially provide a sustainable means of development. UNESCO is therefore aiming to work with governments and local communities to promote dialogue that can support such sites. “When tourists come, they learn about the culture, and the people there learn how to interact with foreigners. And a lot of good comes out of that, a lot of mutual understanding. And in the end that all re-promotes itself into more development,” she said.

CHANGING NATURE OF WARFARE INCREASES IMPACT OF CONFLICT ON CHILDREN

30 JANUARY 2007 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The nature of warfare is changing, and so are its implications for the lives of children caught up in conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children in Armed Conflict, told reporters at UN Headquarters on Wednesday. Conflicts are becoming more internal, she said, with children used as combatants by military and paramilitary groups, and by terrorist cells to carry out isolated attacks. While important precedents are being set regarding the punishment of those who use or recruit child soldiers, Coomaraswamy acknowledged the need to continue to evaluate the responsibility children bear for their actions in the context of war. “The UN’s position in the Sierra Leone court, as well as in the other international courts, has been to try only those who are most responsible, which are the adults,” Coomaraswamy told MediaGlobal. “But the children should not be allowed to get away completely free, so we have been putting forward the idea of alternate justice mechanisms, whether they’re truth and reconciliation commissions or juvenile justice courts with special procedures, etc. But there must be a separate justice system for [children].” The Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict was released on Tuesday, and will be subject to an open debate by the Security Council on 12 February.

SIMPLE SOLUTIONS COULD CURB SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN IDP CAMPS

31 JANUARY 2007 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: Sexual violence in camps for internally displaced persons (IDPs) and refugees is rampant on the periphery of many of the world’s major conflicts. Rape rates are rising in Kenya’s newly created camps for those fleeing post-election violence, and a spike in HIV infections in IDP camps in Darfur has been attributed in part to high numbers of sexual attacks. While security in such camps is often low, simple technologies and engineering adjustments could make communities of the displaced considerably safer, Dr. Simon Reich, Director of the Ford Institute for Human Security at the University of Pittsburgh, said in an interview with MediaGlobal. “For obvious health reasons, you put latrines somewhere where they’re far away from everybody, except camps don’t have light. So women then go off to use the toilet in the middle of the night and they’re raped,” Reich said. “A boring kind of engineering issue in fact becomes an issue of security.” Often hastily created and inadequately funded by national governments or international agencies, many IDP and refugee camps are far from sources of water and fuel. “Once a child leaves a camp because they have to go and get water, that leaves them highly vulnerable. The vast majority of the inhabitants of these IDP and refugee camps are children. And boys and girls are subject to abuse and subject to attack and abduction,” Reich said. The solutions to such problems are often relatively simple and inexpensive. The Women’s Commission for Refugee Women and Children has suggested providing solar panels to camps for the displaced, but such projects require funding and concerted political will. So far, the international community has not produced enough of either, Reich said. “Quite often [when] people flee a conflict, they go to a camp where they have a reasonable expectation that they’re going to be secure and they’re going to be safe, and neither happens.”

NEW INITIATIVE WORKS TO STIMULATE ACCESS TO MODERN ENERGY IN RURAL SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA

21 JANUARY 2008 [MEDIAGLOBAL]: The World Bank recently announced 54 finalists in its Development Marketplace Grant Competition. The competition is part of the Lighting Africa program, which aims to mobilize the private sector to provide modern off-grid lighting to 250 million people in sub-Saharan Africa. “Over 500 million people in [the region] currently lack modern electricity, with rural electricity access rates as low as 2 percent,” Russell Sturm, one of the creators of the initiative, told MediaGlobal. “The poorest people in the world pay the most for the worst product,” he added, noting the developing world’s dependency on fossil fuels, which are both expensive and unsafe. The 54 finalists will present their ideas to a panel of jurors during Lighting Africa 2008, the first global business conference for off-grid lighting in Africa, to be held in Accra, Ghana, on 5-8 May. The panel will select 10 to 20 winners who will receive up to US$200,000 in seed funding to develop and implement their ideas. “Examples of finalists’ projects include the distribution of affordable solar lamps through used clothing networks; a landfill gas system and plant based on animal waste; the creation of supply chains and distribution networks for solar energy systems and light-emitting diodes; and solar electric street lighting,” stated the World Bank. Once the winners are announced the projects will be implemented in as many as 23 countries.