HAIN Partners with the City Government of Antipolo

Last May 8 2008, HAIN met with Mayor Victor Sumulong of Antipolo City and members of its city council to discuss HAIN’s project proposal. HAIN expressed interest in building a partnership with Antipolo city to help strengthen their community based health program, particularly on reproductive health.

Part of the undertaking is to conduct a community needs assessment through surveys, focus-group discussions and key informant interviews among stakeholders in selected barangays of Antipolo. The project will also include capacity development of barangay health workers. HAIN also vowed to provide technical and information support to the city council as they gear for the passage of its local Reproductive Health Code.

This undertaking is part of one of HAIN’s current project entitled “Enhancing Reproductive Health Situation in the Philippines through Capacity Development and Advocacy” The project aims to help develop strong linkages with various community health networks to initiate national population and RH agenda to increase in access to Family Planning (FP) and RH services and slow down population growth. The project is supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation.

Welcome Sandra to HAIN!

Sandra Cortina, a masteral degree candidate of Public Health concentrating in Global Health and Marginalized Populations from the Simon Fraser University, Vancouver Canada is with HAIN for three months as part of her internship program. Sandra is here to complete her course requirement to undergo a practicum in a developing country where she can apply public health concepts and gain practical experience in the field. She is involved in HAIN’s projects on reproductive health and E-health. Sandra also joins some community visit activities of the Council for Health and Development.

Sandra shares her thoughts about her Manila experience...

"My internship at HAIN (pronounced ha-een to those non-Tagalogers!) has up to now been an amazing experience and I look forward to my practicum where I will be researching reproductive health and the needs of community health workers. Although I have only been with HAIN for one month and the project that I am assigned to is soon to start, I have –to a great extent-practiced how a true international Non Governmental Organization works. Whether it’s preparing the background literature for future projects, attending national dissemination forums, participating in advocacy campaigns, or just updating the HAIN blogsite, I am taking away a lot more than I had realized. For the most part, I have come to appreciate the diversity of work that NGOs do. Although each organization is unique to their own initiatives, they must still work in a coordinated manner with other diverse groups and stakeholders to accomplish their goals. In addition to the varied work that goes into HAIN, above all I have come to realize the importance of all the work that comes out of HAIN. My office mates are all dedicated individuals who are committed to improving existing health information. By collecting and providing health data, we can not only start health initiatives, but we can also use it to empower people to act in response to their own health challenges, imperative to the developing world."

The 2nd International Conference on Reproductive Health Management in Bali, Indonesia

The 2nd International Conference on Reproductive Health Management (ICHRM) was held last May 6-8, 2008 at the Kartika Plaza Hotel, Bali, Indonesia. The conference gathered around 400 participants from government, academe, local government units, military, non-government organizations, research institutions, people’s organizations and other individuals, institutions and organizations. The participating countries came mostly from Southeast Asia, and other Asian countries while others came from as far as Sudan and Mauritius.

The 3-day conference dealt with Reproductive Health Management (RHM) as a way of maximizing the potentials of individuals, groups, and institutions working in the reproductive health sector in designing, implementing and sustaining specific initiatives aimed at addressing relevant community aspirations and needs while contributing to the attainment of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The six functional areas include (1) Governance, policy, ethics and standards; (2) Organization and human resource development and management; (3) Knowledge management; (4) Service delivery and operations management; (5) Resource mobilization, partnership and alliance building; and (6) Social entrepreneurship and enterprise development, institutionalization, and sustainability. In addition, RHM includes with 10 elements of reproductive health as defined by the ICPD. The focus was on how best to manage specific reproductive health initiatives with special emphasis on family planning in the light of equally pressing concerns that affect the living conditions of people particularly in developing countries. Thus the conference adopted the theme "Convergence: working together for results and impact".

Participants shared their current expertise and experiences in managing the reproductive health program to achieve better results and impact. The conference gave special emphasis on discussing the management of family planning program and also highlighted critical issues of reproductive health programs, such as access, quality, leadership, community participation, and youth empowerment.

ICRHM provided an opportunity for participants to develop a common agenda and build a consensus on ways to best pursue it, shared learning across individuals and organizations, build skills, and renew commitments to continue their work. Moreover, ICHRM highlighted current and emergent practices in managing reproductive health in relation to other development concerns, identified gaps, gains, lessons, insights, challenges and opportunities in pursuing multiple priorities in the area of reproductive health and development; and reached a consensus on future actions to advance reproductive health management in accelerating the achievement of MDGs.

Sudan will be the next venue for the 3rd ICHRM in 2010.

Tensions rise as world faces food crisis

Food prices are soaring, a wealthier Asia is demanding better food and farmers can’t keep up. In short, the world faces a food crisis and in some places it is already boiling over.

Around the globe, people are protesting and governments are responding with often counterproductive controls on prices and exports—a new politics of scarcity in which ensuring food supplies is becoming a major challenge for the 21st century.

Plundered by severe weather in producing countries and by a boom in demand from fast-developing nations, the world’s wheat stocks are at 30-year lows. Grain prices have been on the rise for five years, ending decades of cheap food.

Widespread drought, a declining dollar, a shift of investment money into commodities and use of farm land to grow fuel have all contributed to the food woes. But population growth and the growing wealth of China and other emerging countries are likely to be more enduring factors.

World population is set to hit 9 billion by 2050, and most of the extra 2.5 billion people will live in the developing world. It is in these countries that the population is demanding dairy and meat, which require more land to produce.

“This is an additional setback for the world economy, at a time when we are already going through major turbulence. But the biggest drama is the impact of higher food prices on the poor,” Angel Gurria, head of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) told Reuters.

In Gurria’s native Mexico, tens of thousands took to the streets last year over the cost of tortillas, a national staple whose price rocketed in tandem with the price of corn.

Read more...
Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer, April 1, 2008

HAIN Takes Lead in Advocacy on Rational Drug Use and Medicine Pricing

The Philippines ranked second to Japan as having the highest medicine prices in Asia. Filipinos spent for medicines the equivalent of $1 billion a year, from 1997 to 2001, the highest in Asean, notwithstanding that half of the Philippines' 80 million population have no access to essential medicines. The cost of medicines here is 40 percent to 70 percent higher than in other Asean countries. For Filipinos who have access to medicines, their budget for total health-related expenses (not just medicines) is a measly P2, 000.00/person/year.(1)

With this alarming backdrop, the Health Action International (HAI), a global network working on issues related to access to medicine and their rational use in collaboration with the Health Action Information Network (HAIN) conducted an advocacy planning workshop last February 12-14, 2008 at the Fersal Place Hotel, Quezon City. The three-day event covered lecture presentations on medicine pricing, overview on the salient provisions of Cheaper Medicine Act of 2007, Government’s intervention and NGOs sharing of experiences and advocacy work. It was attended by 28 Metro Manila representatives and 3 regional participants from various organizations (non-government organizations, academe and people’s organization) that gathered for discussions and workshop sessions on current concerns, developments and advocacy on affordability, availability and safety of drugs in the Philippines

As a result, HAIN was appointed as the secretariat and proposed with the following activities for the year:

* Information dissemination and education to stakeholders and sectors regarding access to medicine as basic human rights
* Institutional strengthening or organizational capacity in conducting advocacy and campaigns
* Giving awards as part of incentives for model programs that will serve as inspiration for the generics campaign.
* Strengthening network and mobilization groups to lobby Cheaper Medicine Bill, Amendments on Generics Act and related issues
* Lobby for rational drug use at the LGU level, specifically functional therapeutic committees or its equivalent
* Special project: Compendum Generics List

(1) Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer, December 19, 2007