Grant will improve reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health
BOSTON — JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc. (JSI) will use a $14.7 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to help the Government of Ethiopia achieve sustainable improvements in reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health in Ethiopia. The Last Ten Kilometers (L10K): What it Takes to Improve Health Outcomes in Rural Ethiopia Program is designed to help address the severe shortage of human resources for health in Ethiopia. It will reach out to families and communities to introduce simple strategies for better health. L10K will help selected Ethiopian organizations develop technical, managerial, and financial capacity to assist this process.
“This new grant will enable JSI to extend and deepen the in-roads it has already made in the country–and help improve the health of more than 15 million women and children in Ethiopia,” commented Joel Lamstein, JSI President. “We are grateful to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for giving JSI this opportunity to further our 12 years of work in-country and build the capacity of local partners to engage more fully in the health care system.”
Over the next five years, JSI will work closely with the Ministry of Health to address this dire situation by working directly with Ethiopian organizations at national, regional, district and community levels to strengthen skills and make reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health services in Ethiopia sustainable.
L10K is a technical assistance and grants program designed to contribute to the current efforts of the government and multiple donors to accelerate the number and spread of the community health worker program. The program trains volunteers to become “model families” who implement simple, achievable health changes in their own homes before moving on to help their neighbors and community as a whole take on these positive health behaviors. L10K focuses on the bridge between households and health extension workers–the formal health system in their community. L10K will test models that aim to change community norms so that households more fully engage to take charge of the health of their families in a sustainable way.
Ethiopia is the second most populous nation in sub-Saharan Africa, with high levels of maternal, newborn and child mortality. Approximately 20% of Ethiopian children die before their fifth birthday, with more than 70% of these deaths linked to preventable or easily treatable childhood illnesses. Low coverage of proven, inexpensive interventions is largely responsible for Ethiopia being ranked 6th globally and 2nd in Africa for total number of maternal and child deaths. Like many sub-Saharan Africa countries, Ethiopia suffers from low economic growth, high population pressures and a severe human resource shortage in all social sectors, including health. The per capita health expenditure from all sources is only $7.60, far lower than the minimum amount ($34) needed to meet primary health care needs in a developing country.
A portion of grant monies will explore the use of non-financial and financial incentives to motivate and sustain volunteer community health workers and health extension workers. Incentives for these workers might include community recognition ceremonies, volunteer t-shirts, and community festivals, as well as access to credit through micro-finance schemes.
“By empowering families and communities, the L10K program will help people in the poorest regions of Ethiopia live healthier lives,” said Dr. Jaime Sepulveda, Director of Integrated Health Solutions Development at the Gates Foundation. “By introducing simple and sustainable health interventions, initiatives such as L10K can play a critical role in improving global health.”
JSI has been deeply invested in Ethiopia since it first began working there in 1986 and is committed to improving the health status of the Ethiopian people. JSI implements several other programs, funded by the US Agency for International Development, which are improving key aspects of the health system, including health logistics, ensuring that medical injections are given safely, and working to reduce famine vulnerability, poor health outcomes and poverty by strengthening human capacity and social resiliency through the Ethiopia Essential Services for Health (ESHE) Project. The Last Ten Kilometers (L10K): What it Takes to Improve Health Outcomes in Rural Ethiopia project will expanding those efforts and contribute to sustaining the work.
Read about JSI’s project work in Ethiopia: www.jsi.com/JSIInternet/Projects/ListProjects.cfm?Select=Country&ID=108
JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc., is a nonprofit, public health research and consulting organization committed to improving primary health care services to poor and underserved populations. JSI works to promote health and wellness, prevent disease, expand access to care and treatment, and improve health service delivery.
Ethiopian Woyanne troops must leave Somalia for the country’s ailing transitional institutions to garner any legitimacy and a political solution to emerge, leaders from Somalia’s top clan said Thursday.
The presence in Somalia of the US-backed Ethiopian Woyanne regime’s troops will continue fueling violence that has already killed thousands and displaced close to a million in recent months, Hawiye elders said.
On Thursday alone, 13 civilians were killed in Mogadishu, including 11 when two mortar shells smashed into a market area.
“The problem of Somalia can only be solved by Somalis, we have to meet with the TFG (transitional federal government), the group of Asmara (opposition) and find a solution the Somali way,” said Abdulaye Hassan, a Hawiye spokesman.
“That is possible only if the Ethiopians Woyannes leave,” he added.
The Hawiye clan is the largest in Somalia and is dominant in the capital Mogadishu, although some divisions exist amongst its numerous sub-clans.
Ethiopian Woyanne troops, with the United States’ blessing, came to the rescue of the transitional government’s embattled forces in late 2006 after an Islamist militia took control of large parts of the country.
The Islamists, accused by Washington of ties to Al-Qaeda, were swiftly defeated but have since reverted to guerrilla tactics, carrying out daily attacks in Mogadishu.
Hassan condemned what he said were systematic arrests of Hawiye clan members who speak out against the TFG.
“We are sleeping in a different house every night because the TFG is after us,” he said.
Sirraj Sheikh Hassan, another Hawiye representative, insisted his clan — frequently accused of supporting radical Islamic insurgents — was not seeking confrontation.
“We are not armed people but elders who are not happy with the Ethiopian presence. We are fighting them verbally,” he told AFP in Mogadishu.
“The main conflict is now between the group of Asmara and the TFG. It can only be solved if the Ethiopians leave. There is no other solution than negotiation,” he added.
The government and allied foreign mediators have so far not engaged in serious consultations with an opposition movement formed in Asmara in September.
The group, which calls itself the Alliance for the Re-Liberation of Somalia, is led by key political figures from the country’s short-lived Islamist rule and is hosted by Eritrea, which faces growing international isolation.
The Hawiye say they feel alienated from the country’s centre of power. Although the new prime minister, Nur Hassan Hussein, is one of theirs, the nation’s strongman remains more than ever President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed.
Yusuf is from the Darod clan, the country’s second-largest, and cracks have formed along clanic lines in the fragile government.
“The Ethiopians Woyannes have been invited by the legitimate government of Somalia, that is the TFG, to restore peace, law and order in Somalia. So no other authority can ask them to leave,” said Interior Minister Mohamed Mahmud Guled.
“The so-called Hawiye representatives don’t represent the Hawiye people and they are not in a position to stop the fighting because the Shebab (the Islamist movement’s armed wing) are not under their authority,” he added.
Addis Ababa has said it wants to pull out as soon as possible but argues that this cannot be done before a robust international peacekeeping force is deployed.
In the meantime, violence continues to make Mogadishu one of the most dangerous capitals in the world and aggravate an already dire humanitarian situation.
“The insurgents are standing against the new colonisation of Somalia by Ethiopians. Once the Ethiopians pull out, there will be no more fighting,” said Nur Jamah Karshe, another Hawiye elder.
WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States said Friday it has urged renegade general Laurent Nkunda to surrender and go into exile to avoid a bloody showdown with Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) government troops.
Jendayi Frazer, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs, told reporters that diplomat Timothy Shortley, her senior advisor for conflict, had spoken to Nkunda, a Tutsi leader, to give him the message.
“And we clearly conveyed the message to him that he should surrender, go into exile and allow his forces … to be demobilized,” Frazer said when asked if Washington wanted Nkunda disarmed by President Joseph Kabila’s forces.
“Clearly as a sovereign government, President Kabila has the right to try to exercise territorial sovereignty … he has right to use his forces against what is essentially a rebelious general from his own military,” she said.
“But our concern is that the civilian population not be caught in the middle of such an offensive against Nkunda so we’ve been urging Nkunda, the government of Kabila to try to end this through peaceful means,” she said.
Nonetheless, Frazer, who spoke before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice travels to Ethiopia next week for a summit with leaders of African Great Lakes states such as the DRCongo, noted that Nkunda has resisted proposed exile.
On Tuesday, community leaders in the DRCongo joined forces to demand that the government track down Nkunda and hand him over to the courts.
The troubled eastern province of Nord-Kivu has seen heavy clashes since the end of August between some 4,000 insurgents loyal to the former general, and more than 20,000 government troops.
Nearly 400,000 civilians have been displaced by fighting in Nord-Kivu since the end of last year, according to the United Nations, in addition to some 800,000 who fled their homes following previous clashes.
Villagers have been displaced by fighting not only between the army and Nkunda, who claims to be protecting the minority Congolese Tutsi population, but also between Mai-Mai militia and Hutu rebels from Rwanda, who are hostile to Nkunda.
The United Nations has stepped up its criticism of Nkunda in recent days, leading the renegade general to accuse the world body’s mission in DRCongo of siding with government forces and warn of retaliation.
