Archive for: Community Health

Linking Biodiversity Conservation and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene: Experiences from sub-Saharan Africa

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This paper builds the evidence base for how implementers have integrated Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and freshwater ecosystem conservation to date in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) and documents lessons learned from projects that take a more holistic approach to conservation and development. After an extensive review of existing projects that integrate freshwater conservation and WASH appraoches, the report summarizes four projects that provide good models for future efforts in SSA. These projects are: The Rural Access to New Opportunities for Health and Water Resource Management (RANON’ALA) Project in Madagascar; Pangani Basin Environmental Flow Assessment in Tanzania; Working for Wetlands in South Africa; and the Sustainable Fisheries (Ba-Nafaa) Project in The Gambia and Senegal. The report also provides lessons learned from the review, as well as an analysis of opportunities and challenges with implementing integrated health and conservation projects.

Year: 2012

Source: Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group | Conservation International

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    Biodiversity

    Community Health

    Conservation

    Integration

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    Integrating Population, Health, and Environment Programs with Contraceptive Distribution in Rural Ethiopia: A Qualitative Case Study

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    In rural Ethiopia, environmental degradation and a shortage of arable land impose a major toll on the population. Population, health, and environment (PHE) programs, such as that of the Ethio-Wetlands and Natural Resources Association (EWNRA), have evolved to address these issues. This article examines the community-based distribution (CBD) of family planning commodities in rural Ethiopia through EWNRA’s large, multisectoral PHE program. Participants indicated that the integrated program encouraged acceptance of family planning and reduced geographic barriers to access. Through peer education and collaboration across government ministries, EWNRA leveraged integrated population–environment messages to garner support for its network of CBD providers. These integration strategies are a model for PHE programs worldwide, especially amid the global response to climate change. Because of the complex nature of PHE organizations, researchers often find it difficult to effectively document and evaluate their programs. With this in mind, the article proposes a framework to assess PHE integration.

    Year: 2015

    Source: Studies in Family Planning

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      Community Health

      Family Planning

      Integration

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      HoPE-LVB Project Evaluation Webinar

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      Pathfinder International and partners in Kenya and Uganda have implemented the Health of the People and Environment in the Lake Victoria Basin (HoPE-LVB) project since 2011. The project aims to scale up its use of the population, health, and environment (PHE) community-development model at local, national, and regional levels by integrating PHE considerations in formal government development planning and policies. “PHE” refers to the PHE approach, which aspires to increase access to comprehensive reproductive health services and improve maternal and child health care practices while simultaneously improving natural resource management in project communities.

      On April 30th, 2019, HoPE-LVB project implementers and evaluators discussed the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) evaluation report on the model’s effectiveness and scalability. Released in April 2018, the USAID report addresses three key questions:

      • What are stakeholders’ perceptions of the HoPE-LVB project model’s added value to family planning and reproductive health, maternal and child health, livelihoods, governance, natural resources management, or conservation?
      • Has the HoPE-LVB project’s explicit focus on systematic planning for scale-up resulted in positive outcomes for the model’s institutionalization, sustainability, and expansion?
      • To what extent did the HoPE-LVB project achieve its objectives as measured by its key performance indicators/results?

      The evaluation of HoPE-LVB had been long anticipated, as the project was supported by cross-sectoral investments by multiple donors and represents a pioneering East African PHE project implemented at scale.

      The webinar, scheduled at 9:00 a.m. EST on April 30, 2019, was hosted by the PACE (Policy, Advocacy, and Communication Enhanced for Population and Reproductive Health) project. It included the following speakers:

      • Clive Mutunga of USAID provided introductory remarks on USAID’s support for PHE models globally and what USAID learned from the evaluation of HoPE-LVB.
      • Eileen Mokaya of Pathfinder International provided an overview of the HoPE-LVB project.
      • Richard Kibombo of Global Health Program Cycle Improvement Project (GH Pro) shared the evaluation’s results and his suggested next steps for PHE sustainability and scale-up.

      Year: 2019

      Source: Pathfinder International | Population Reference Bureau

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        Community Health

        Conservation

        Family Planning

        Integration

        Monitoring & Evaluation

        Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights

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        Emerging Threats to Human Health from Global Environmental Change: Annual Review of Environment and Resources

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        Large-scale anthropogenic changes to the natural environment, including land-use change, climate change, and the deterioration of ecosystem services, are all accelerating. These changes are interacting to generate five major emerging public health threats that endanger the health and well-being of hundreds of millions of people. These threats include increasing exposure to infectious disease, water scarcity, food scarcity, natural disasters, and population displacement. Taken together, they may represent the greatest public health challenge humanity has faced. There is an urgent need to improve our understanding of the dynamics of each of these threats: the complex interplay of factors that generate them, the characteristics of populations that make them particularly vulnerable, and the identification of which populations are at greatest risk from each of these threats. Such improved understanding would be the basis for stepped-up efforts at modeling and mapping global vulnerability to each of these threats. It would also help natural resource managers and policy makers to estimate the health impacts associated with their decisions and would allow aid organizations to target their resources more effectively.

        Year: 2009

        Source: Annual Review of Environment and Resources

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          Climate Change

          Community Health

          Food Security

          Infectious Diseases

          Natural Disasters

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          Developing Behavior Change Communications for Population, Health and Environment Projects: A Facilitator’s Guide

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          This Guide was designed for facilitators/trainers who work with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) implementing population, health and environment (PHE) activities to develop a behavior change communication (BCC) intervention that supports the achievement of the PHE project’s goals and objectives. It instructs the facilitator on how to train participants on the basic components of a BCC intervention. It also advises how to adapt these components for PHE projects that need integrated messages to raise community awareness of the PHE linkages of health and pro-conservation behaviors. This training is best suited for NGOs and/or government agencies with existing PHE or core health/conservation activities. It is ideal for individuals from organizations that have already participated in a workshop on PHE project design or in a PHE-related workshop in which they developed a PHE conceptual framework, PHE project goal, and objectives and activities.

          Year: 2013

          Source: The BALANCED Project

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            Community Health

            Community Outreach

            Conservation

            Integration

            Project Design

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            Coffee and Community: Combining Agribusiness and Health in Rwanda

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            This issue of FOCUS highlights the successes and lessons learned from the USAID-supported Sustaining Partnerships to Enhance Rural Development (SPREAD) Project in Rwanda. In the most densely populated country in Africa, coffee farmers improved their livelihoods and the health of their families by combining community health education with agribusiness development by forming and strengthening cooperatives. Since 2006, this Population, Health and Environment project has increased farmer revenues and improved family health outcomes in the target communities.

            Year: 2011

            Source: The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

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              Agribusiness

              Community Health

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