Devex: In wake of rescission battle, U.S. aid community faces spending restrictions

“While the White House pulled back on a plan to rescind billions of dollars in foreign aid funding, the Office of Management and Budget continues to impose spending restrictions on U.S. development agencies…” (Igoe, 9/11).

 

Devex: U.S. funding cuts force NGOs to break commitments in Guatemala

“…[The USAID-funded violence prevention project] Convivimos is just one program impacted by U.S. President Donald Trump’s announcement in March that the U.S. would stop providing foreign aid funds to El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala due to the continued migration of citizens from those countries to the southern U.S. border. Since then, the administration has said it was developing a list of criteria countries would need to meet to see funds resume, but no additional details have been released publicly. This leaves NGOs with immediate funding gaps and uncertainty about the reliability of the U.S. as a major aid donor in the region…” (Welsh, 9/11).

CIDRAP News: Azar, Redfield among U.S. officials heading to DRC to assess Ebola

“[Tuesday] Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar announced that he and a number of other top U.S. health officials will be traveling to the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and neighboring countries in the coming days to gauge the Ebola outbreak in the region, the world’s second largest in history…” (Soucheray, 9/10).

 

Homeland Preparedness News: USAID provides more than $21M in additional aid for Ebola fight in DRC

“Ebola containment efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) will now be bolstered by $21 million in additional humanitarian assistance from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)…” (Galford, 9/10).

 

Nature: Exclusive: Behind the front lines of the Ebola wars

“How the World Health Organization is battling bullets, politics and a deadly virus in the Democratic Republic of the Congo…” (Maxmen, 9/11).

 

NPR: In Congo, Ebola Is Just One More Thing To Worry About

“…The insecurity in this part of Congo, along with the government’s inability to provide the most basic of services, have made people suspicious of efforts to ward off the virus — and fueled conspiracy theories about the Ebola crisis…” (Peralta, 9/10).

 

STAT: Azar, other top Trump officials to travel to DRC to assess Ebola crisis

“…The mission, announced Tuesday, marks Azar’s first trip to the region since the start of the outbreak. He will be accompanied by Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who has previously traveled to the outbreak zone. … Also accompanying Azar will be Tim Ziemer, senior deputy assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development and staff of the National Security Council. The group will travel to northeastern DRC, where the outbreak has been underway for over a year, and to the neighboring countries of Uganda and Rwanda…” (Branswell, 9/10).

The Guardian: Leak suggests U.N. agency self-censors on climate crisis after U.S. pressure

“…An email sent by a U.S.-based official of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) on 28 August to colleagues around the world relayed that the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration (PRM) told the agency documents related to program activities it funds ‘must not be in conflict with current [U.S. government] political sensitivities.’ Sensitivities include the climate crisis, Sustainable Development Goals, the Global Compact for Migration and ‘anything that seems at odds with the administration’s take on U.S. domestic/foreign issues,’ the official wrote in the email. … The email’s author noted that ‘PRM is very willing to cut funding in areas that it deems are not in line with U.S. foreign policy objectives’…” (Stoakes, 9/11).

The Guardian: Bacteria developing new ways to resist antibiotics, doctors warn

“Bacteria are increasingly developing ways of resisting antibiotics, threatening a future in which patients could become untreatable, doctors have warned. Over the last decade scientists in the U.K. studying samples from patients have identified 19 new mechanisms of antibiotic resistance. The changes in bacteria are driven by genetics and mean they become able to repel even entire types of ‘last resort’ antibiotics, including carbapenems and colistin…” (Campbell, 9/10).

 

The Telegraph: Life-saving drugs may soon become useless, experts warn as 19 untreatable superbugs are discovered in the last decade

“…Officials estimate that approximately 5,000 patients die due to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) each year. [On Tuesday,] Public Health England (PHE) warned that unless the resistance crisis is addressed, the toll could become far worse, with ineffective antibiotics such as colistin and carbapenems ushering in pandemics of untreatable disease. … PHE confirmed its labs have received 1,300 samples of bacteria containing one of the 19 new resistance types from across the U.K. in the past 10 years…” (Rodkin, 9/11).

Al Jazeera: ‘Frontier finance’ is scaling up to achieve United Nations goals

“In advance of the United Nations General Assembly that begins later this month, a new report released on Wednesday details the present shortcomings and future opportunities in ‘frontier finance.’ That area of impact investment seeks to attract funding for projects consistent with the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Published by the Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN), the report is the first of its kind to study the financing for efforts to improve the lives of low- to lower-middle-income people in emerging and frontier markets. And it identifies ways to scale the market to reach ambitious targets…” (Piven, 9/10).

 

Financial Times: Green property financing, Frontier impact, U.S. chiefs v gun violence

“…The common assumption about impact investing is that doing good means sacrificing returns. However, new research from the Global Impact Investing Network shows this to be a misconception — even when those investments made are out on the fringes of the market. The GIIN recently polled ‘frontier finance’ investors — those who are putting money to work to improve the lives of poor people in emerging and frontier market countries — and found that three-quarters of them expect to make a risk-adjusted, market-rate return and nearly nine out of 10 are happy with their financial performance…” (Tett et al., 9/11).

 

ImpactAlpha: Lessons in frontier finance from 40 impact investments

“…Still, ‘within these markets, opportunities for substantial impact remain unrealized,’ says the Rachel Bass of the Global Impact Investing Network, which rounded up lessons from 40 frontier finance deals in ‘Unlocking the Potential of Frontier Finance’…” (Price, 9/11).

 

Pensions & Investments: Some lessons learned on frontier finance — GIIN report

“…The report … found that impact investors have a solid history of frontier investing, but capital flows are far short of demand for investment and the estimated $2.5 trillion capital required to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. … The frontier finance investments studied had small ticket sizes, with an average of $1.1 million and a median of $385,000…” (Bradford, 9/10).

Devex: The E.U.’s development commissioner-elect receives her mission

“Provided she passes a grilling from the European Parliament in the coming weeks, former Finnish finance minister Jutta Urpilainen will lead the European Union’s development policy for the next five years. Ursula von der Leyen, the former German defense minister who will head the European Commission from Nov. 1, unveiled her team of 26 commissioners Tuesday, saying each will be responsible for ensuring the delivery of the Sustainable Development Goals in their policy area and all will be accountable for overall implementation of the goals…” (Chadwick, 9/11).

DW: Millions of children in conflicts need psychological help: report (9/10).

 

New Humanitarian: Five things to watch after Hurricane Dorian strikes the Bahamas (Parker, 9/10).

 

Reuters: Sudan’s major floods present first challenge for its new leader (Siddig et al., 9/10).

 

Reuters: Four cholera cases confirmed in Sudan, three die of acute watery diarrhea (Abdelaziz/Saba, 9/10).

 

Reuters: Moroccan activists denounce arrest of journalist on abortion charges (Eljechtimi, 9/10).

 

U.N. News: More funds needed to counter ‘persistent and multi-faceted humanitarian problems’ in Ethiopia (9/10).

 

Xinhua: 16 pct of Ghanaians have no access to clean water: NGOs (9/11).

STAT: What the U.S. can learn from Rwandan refugee camps: treat public health seriously

Laszlo Madaras, chief medical officer of the Migrant Clinicians Network, a family physician in Pennsylvania, and a clinical assistant professor of medicine at Penn State College of Medicine

 

“…If the Trump administration is formally changing how long children and families seeking asylum will stay in detention facilities, then it needs to urgently, immediately, and transparently revise its medical protocol for those forced to live in these facilities to protect public health and provide basic humanitarian aid, just as was done in refugee camps decades ago and thousands of miles away [in Rwanda]. … I am not suggesting that detention is an appropriate place for children. It isn’t. … If long-term detention is combined with lack of vaccinations for communicable diseases in such already overcrowded facilities, even more infection, sickness, and death will follow…” (9/10).

Project Syndicate: The World and the U.N. Must Reduce Population Growth

Frank Götmark, professor of animal ecology and conservation biology at the University of Gothenburg and head of the Overpopulation Project, Robin Maynard, director of Population Matters, and colleagues

 

“…The SDGs, which aim ‘to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity for all,’ are commendable, and summarize the kind of world many of us wish to see in 2030. But if this vision is to have any chance of materializing, governments must now add an 18th goal: ‘Dampen population growth.’ … More specifically, an additional SDG to dampen population growth would promote funding for voluntary, rights-based family planning. This approach has a proven track record of success, not only in reducing births rapidly, but also in advancing the empowerment of women and spurring economic progress. No coercive ‘population control’ measures are needed. Rather, wider awareness of the linkage between family size and ecological sustainability can help parents recognize the benefits of having fewer children…” (9/10).

IntraHealth International: IntraHealth Urges Investment in Community and Primary Health at TICAD

“At the 7th Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) last month, IntraHealth International and Japan Center for International Exchange convened policy experts, ministry of health officials, and representatives from the World Health Organization and Japanese government [at a side event] to lay out a case for greater investment in the health workforce…” (9/10).

UNAIDS: Ending AIDS is everyone’s business

Gunilla Carlsson, UNAIDS executive director, a.i., and Nancy Wildfeir-Field, president of GBCHealth, discuss the importance of businesses’ involvement in a multi-sectoral approach to ending AIDS. They write, “Governments, intergovernmental organizations, civil society, and businesses each possess important, unique, and complementary resources and capabilities to contribute to the global AIDS response. When different sectors succeed in combining those assets, the potential for greater impact increases significantly…” (9/10).

UNAIDS: UNAIDS still ahead in implementing UN-SWAP

“One year after the launch of the United Nations System-Wide Action Plan on Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women 2018-2022 (UN-SWAP 2.0), UNAIDS has been rated as one of the best performing agencies in the United Nations system, meeting or exceeding all 17 of its performance indicators…” (9/10).

USAID: FROM LAB TO LAUNCH: A Case Study on Country Prioritization

“Through an award from Saving Lives at Birth: A Grand Challenge for Development, a team of scientists at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, received support to conduct an in-depth market analysis to identify countries best suited for first launch of its new product — an inhaled form of oxytocin to prevent or treat postpartum hemorrhage. The following case study summarizes the steps that the Monash team took to adapt the framework from Ready, Set, Launch: A Country-Level Launch Planning Guide for Global Health Innovations and apply it to its country prioritization exercise in two steps: (i) shortlisting countries for launch and (ii) finalizing country selection…” (9/10).

CDC: One Country’s Success and Mentorship in Fighting TB among those Living with HIV

This CDC feature story discusses Kenya’s “extraordinary progress in the rapid scale-up of [TB preventive treatment (TPT)]” among people living with HIV and how the country “now serves as a model for implementation in other countries” (9/10).