Urbanisation, Sustainable Growth and Poverty Reduction in Asia

Almost 3 billion people live in urban areas across the world – equivalent to 48 per cent of the world’s total population. Asia accounts for almost half of these, with an urban population of between 1.3 and 1.5 billion people, accounting for approximately 37 per cent of Asia’s total population (UN-Habitat 2003a; ACHR 2005). These statistics for Asia are perhaps conservative, as different countries define ‘urban centres ’ differently, based upon both population size and other criteria. If either India or China were to redefine their criteria to include some smaller settlements as ‘urban’, then an even greater proportion of Asia’s population would be considered ‘urban’ (Satterthwaite 2005). Asia has a fast growing urban population. The urban population in the region as a whole is projected to grow to 1.8 billion by 2010 (see Figure 1), and as a result Asia is expected to account for a growing proportion of the world’s urban population – just over 50 per cent by 2010 (see Figures 2 and 3). The UN expects this number to increase to between 53 per cent and 55 per cent of the world’s urban population by 2030 (UN-Habitat 2004). In addition to a growing urban population, Asia is also urbanising – that is a growing proportion of its total population live in urban areas (see Figure 4). There are three potential factors contributin

Maternity waiting homes in Southern Lao PDR : the unique \u27silk home\u27

The concept of maternity waiting homes (MWH) has a long history spanning over 100 years. The research reported here was conducted in the Thateng District of Sekong Province in southern Lao People&rsquo;s Democratic Republic (PDR) to establish whether the MWH concept would be affordable, accessible, and most importantly acceptable, as a strategy to improve maternal outcomes in the remote communities of Thateng with a high proportion of the population from ethnic minority groups. The research suggested that there were major barriers to minority ethnic groups using existing maternal health services (reflected in very low usage of trained birth attendants and hospitals and clinics) in Thateng. Unless MWH are adapted to overcome these potential barriers, such initiatives will suffer the same fate as existing maternal facilities. Consequently, the Lao iteration of the concept, as operationalized in the Silk Homes project in southern Lao PDR is unique in combining maternal and infant health services with opportunities for micro credit and income generating activities and allowing non-harmful traditional practices to co-exist alongside modern medical protocols. These innovative approaches to the MWH concept address the major economic, social and cultural barriers to usage of safe birthing options in remote communities of southern Lao PDR.<br /

Reducing Inequality – The Missing MDG: A Content Review of PRSPs and Bilateral Donor Policy Statements

Although important gains have been made in reducing global poverty, the pace of progress across the world is not on track to achieve the 2015 MDG targets. Is this due to lack of ownership on the part of national governments and the international community? This article examines whether the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs) and donor policy statements are aligned with MDG priorities and targets. The analysis found a high degree of commitment to MDGs as a whole but both PRSPs and donor statements are selective, consistently emphasising income poverty and social investments for education, health and water but not other targets concerned with empowerment and inclusion of the most vulnerable such as gender violence or women's political representation. The article concludes that a new, ninth Goal needs to be added – to reduce inequality – to make the MDGs aligned to the original purpose of the Millennium Declaration

Lessons from the Making of the MDGs: Human Development Meets Results?based Management in an Unfair World

This article argues that two ideas – human development and results?based management – were particularly significant in shaping the MDGs. These are unlikely intellectual bedfellows, but by charting the evolution of the MDGs, their many influences are demonstrated. The conclusion identifies three main lessons. First, it argues that the MDGs have had only limited impact on policies and actions because the idea behind them, human development, was never fully institutionalised. Second, the article points out the disjuncture that occurred with global goals, the MDGs being operationalised by country level Poverty Reduction Strategies (PRSs) overseen by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. PRSs need to be genuinely owned by countries, and the IMF and World Bank need to introduce internal ‘Arrogance Reduction Strategies’ to transform their control?oriented cultures. Finally, the conclusion questions whether the idea of human development is past its ‘sell?by’ date – do we need a new idea to mobilise and guide post?2015 pro?poor policy

Risk factors for childhood malnutrition in Roma settlements in Serbia

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Children living in Roma settlements in Central and Eastern Europe face extreme levels of social exclusion and poverty, but their health status has not been well studied. The objective of this study was to elucidate risk factors for malnutrition in children in Roma settlements in Serbia.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Anthropometric and sociodemographic measures were obtained for 1192 Roma children under five living in Roma settlements from the 2005 Serbia Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey. Multiple logistic regression was used to relate family and child characteristics to the odds of stunting, wasting, and underweight.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The prevalence of stunting, wasting, and underweight was 20.1%, 4.3%, and 8.0%, respectively. Nearly all of the children studied fell into the lowest quintile of wealth for the overall population of Serbia. Children in the lowest quintile of wealth were four times more likely to be stunted compared to those in the highest quintile, followed by those in the second lowest quintile (AOR = 2.1) and lastly by those in the middle quintile (AOR = 1.6). Children who were ever left in the care of an older child were almost twice as likely to stunted as those were not. Children living in urban settlements showed a clear disadvantage with close to three times the likelihood of being wasted compared to those living in rural areas. There was a suggestion that maternal, but not paternal, education was associated with stunting, and maternal literacy was significantly associated with wasting. Whether children were ever breastfed, immunized or had diarrhoeal episodes in the past two weeks did not show strong correlations to children malnutrition status in this Roma population.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>There exists a gradient relationship between household wealth and stunting even within impoverished settlements, indicating that among poor and marginalized populations socioeconomic inequities in child health should be addressed. Other areas on which to focus future research and public health intervention include maternal literacy, child endangerment practices, and urban settlements.</p

How states exerted power to create the Millennium Development Goals and how this shaped the global health agenda: Lessons for the sustainable development goals and the future of global health.

Since 2000, the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) provided the framework for global development efforts transforming the field now known as global health. The MDGs both reflected and contributed to shaping a normative global health agenda. In the field of global health, the role of the state is largely considered to have diminished; however, this paper reasserts states as actors in the conceptualisation and institutionalisation of the MDGs, and illustrates how states exerted power and engaged in the MDG process. States not only sanctioned the MDGs through their heads of states endorsing the Millennium Declaration, but also acted more subtly behind the scenes supporting, enabling, and/or leveraging other actors, institutions and processes to conceptualise and legitimize the MDGs. Appreciating the MDGs' role in the conceptualisation of global health is particularly relevant as the world transitions to the MDGs' successor, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The SDGs' influence, impact and importance remains to be seen; however, to understand the future of global health and how actors, particularly states, can engage to shape the field, a deeper sense of the MDGs' legacy and how actors engaged in the past is helpful

Framing access to medicines in developing countries: an analysis of media coverage of Canada's Access to Medicines Regime

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>In September 2003, the Canadian government committed to developing legislation that would facilitate greater access to affordable medicines for developing countries. Over the course of eight months, the legislation, now known as Canada's Access to Medicines Regime (CAMR), went through a controversial policy development process and the newspaper media was one of the major venues in which the policy debates took place. The purpose of this study was to examine how the media framed CAMR to determine how policy goals were conceptualized, which stakeholder interests controlled the public debate and how these variables related to the public policy process.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We conducted a qualitative content analysis of newspaper coverage of the CAMR policy and implementation process from 2003-2008. The primary theoretical framework for this study was framing theory. A total of 90 articles from 11 Canadian newspapers were selected for inclusion in our analysis. A team of four researchers coded the articles for themes relating to access to medicines and which stakeholders' voice figured more prominently on each issue. Stakeholders examined included: the research-based industry, the generic industry, civil society, the Canadian government, and developing country representatives.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The most frequently mentioned themes across all documents were the issues of drug affordability, intellectual property, trade agreements and obligations, and development. Issues such as human rights, pharmaceutical innovation, and economic competitiveness got little media representation. Civil society dominated the media contents, followed far behind by the Canadian government, the research-based and generic pharmaceutical industries. Developing country representatives were hardly represented in the media.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>Media framing obscured the discussion of some of the underlying policy goals in this case and failed to highlight issues which are now significant barriers to the use of the legislation. Using the media to engage the public in more in-depth exploration of the policy issues at stake may contribute to a more informed policy development process. The media can be an effective channel for those stakeholders with a weaker voice in policy deliberations to raise public attention to particular issues; however, the political and institutional context must be taken into account as it may outweigh media framing effects.</p

Debt Relief Effectiveness and Institution Building

The history of debt relief is now particularly long, the associated costs are soaring and the outcomes are at least uncertain. This paper reviews and provides new evidence on the effects of recent debt relief programs on different macroeconomic indicators in developing countries, focusing on the Highly Indebted Poor Countries. Besides, the relationship between debt relief and institutional change is investigated to assess whether donors are moving towards and ex-post governance conditionality. Results show that debt relief is only weakly associated with subsequent improvements in economic performance but it is correlated with increasing domestic debt in HIPCs, undermining the positive achievements in reducing external debt service. Finally, there is evidence that donors are moving towards a more sensible allocation of debt forgiveness, rewarding countries with better policies and institutions