CAN was represented by Jesca Akello of Hope Development Initiative (HDI), Tim Quinlan (CAN Research Regional Coordinator/Free University Amsterdam) and Renaldah Mjomba (CAN co-facilitator/VSO) who all reiterated the critical role community (caregivers) play in optimising access, care and treatment. Read about the CAN Delegation's recommendations. Read the general meeting report.

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Source: International Health Policies 162 Global Health Check, 28 March 2012 A recent World Bank report on the fiscal dimensions of HIV and AIDS in a selection of sub-Saharan African countries has stirred significant debate. Here, Professor Brook Baker argues the report is ‘seriously out-of-date’ and ignores important new evidence on treatment-as-prevention. Dr Markus Haacker, co-author of the report, responds… The World Bank has just recently issued a “new” report: “The fiscal dimension of HIV/AIDS in Botswana, South Africa, Swaziland, and Uganda.” The Report doesn’t really feel “new” because it represents a recurrent theme in the World Bank approach from the earliest days of the global AIDS pandemic – it’s not fiscally sustainable to treat people living with HIV in high impact, low-resource countries – instead the world must focus on “prevention ...

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MSF calls on the stakeholders of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria - including its donors, Board of Directors, and Secretariat - to convene an emergency donor conference and to open a new early funding window to raise the necessary resources needed to ensure that the Fund is fully functioning and open for business in 2012. Countries simply cannot wait two years to access new funds to scale-up and improve lifesaving treatment programs. For its part, the United States must also ensure that funding for US President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) is preserved and that the commitments for scale-up of HIV treatment are met. European Commission and European Union member states must boost their financial support, and affected country governments must make all efforts to increase scale-up of HIV and TB services. In "Losing Ground", MSF identifies and describes the impact of funding shortfalls in critical areas of HIV and TB. This issue brief illustrates findin ...

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Source: Huairou Update. By Becca Asaki. In February, while much of the women's movement focused on the 56th Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), grassroots caregivers from across West Africa gathered in Ilorin, Nigeria to lay the groundwork for a new model of organizing. Dressed in brilliant prints and dancing to the beat of six drummers, more than one hundred caregivers and other grassroots women from the International Women's Communication Center (IWCC) pulled the visiting international delegation into a swarm of welcome and celebration. The occasion was a new beginning: linking existing groups of home-based caregivers across West Africa into a new sub-regional network. Members of the Kwara State AIDS Control Agency, local labor union representatives, nuns, imams, and leaders from across the region sat together as the grassroots women of Nigeria formally greeted them. Representatives from each Nigerian group, dressed in their organizations' respective patterned uniforms, welc ...

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Caritas Athens is encouraging more people to volunteer during the country’s worst financial crisis ever. Over 130 people attended ‘Volunteers Day’, a workshop organised by the Greek Caritas Europa member organisation, where volunteers were rewarded for their commitments. “Meeting volunteers is like meeting the soul of caritas,” said Caritas Europa president Father Erny Gillen, who presided the event. “Listening to the witnesses of volunteers coming from many different horizons was an effective induction into the heart of caritas as it beats in today's Athens,” he said. Lawyer and special advisor for the Greek ombudsman Maria Voutsinos spoke about the legal frame for volunteers in Greece at the Catholic School of Jeanne D’Arc in Pireus, run by the Saint Joseph sisters, where the event took place.

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Source: HESP-News & Notes - 07/2012 By Karen Daniels, Marina Clarke and Karin C Ringsberg Health Research Policy and Systems 2012, 10:8 (12 March 2012) Over the past half decade South Africa has been developing, implementing and redeveloping its Lay Health Worker (LHW) policies. Research during this period has highlighted challenges with LHW programme implementation. These challenges have included an increased burden of care for female LHWs. The aim of this study was to explore contemporary LHW policy development processes and the extent to which issues of gender are taken up within this process.

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Source: The Children and AIDS Regional Initiative (CARI) The Children and AIDS Regional Initiative (CARI) is a five-year programme (2006-2011) to improve the well being of orphans and children affected and made vulnerable by HIV and AIDS. This documentation explores child- and HIV-sensitive social protection implemented under the umbrella of CARI in five of nine selected countries within the Eastern and Southern Africa region. First, the authors discuss the wider remit of social protection and pay particular attention to the current debate around child- and HIV-sensitive social protection, particularly in ESAR. Second, the methodology is outlined for the documentation at large, including the various methods employed, the selection of country case studies, and some of the challenges encountered. Next, a synthesis of the findings across the five country case studies is presented to explore overarching themes and lessons learned. Finally, a number of conclusions is drawn on the basis of ...

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Source: Catholic Relief Services, 31 March 2012 Contributed by: Robert J. Vitillo This case study documents AIDSRelief strategies for increasing male involvement in HIV care and treatment. Strategies, employed in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia and Nigeria, included: (1) conducting a gender analysis of the program (2) promoting support groups for men (3) strengthening couples’-based interventions (4) involving men in antenatal care and PMTCT services.

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The Lancet, Volume 379, Issue 9822, Page 1171, 31 March 2012 Last week, a report into care of patients at the end of their lives drew attention to the lack of appropriate training in this area given to many doctors. Despite several reports and guidelines over the past few years on the importance of managing end-of-life care, knowledge and confidence among hospital doctors is still far from ideal when looking after those in the last few days, weeks, months, or even years of their lives. With “Improving end-of-life care: professional development for physicians”, the Royal College of Physicians (RCP) in the UK hopes to support hospital doctors in caring for people nearing death. [Taken from the introduction]

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Source: ILPN Organising Committee The organising committee of the 2nd International Conference on Evidence-based Policy in Long-term Care is pleased to invite abstracts for individual presentations and organised sessions for the conference, to be held from 5th to 8th of September 2012 at the London School of Economics and Political Science, London. Building on the success of the 2010 event, the conference will focus on evaluative empirical research with direct relevance to long-term care policy (click here to review the materials from the 2010 ILPN conference). The conference will offer an opportunity to debate with international experts key policy issues related to the organisation, delivery, funding and regulation of long-term care services. Some of the main thematic areas to be covered include: care models, case management, economics of long-term care, equity and efficiency, funding syst ...

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Source: HESP-News & Notes - 07/2012 The focus of the spring symposium will be on the review of evidence and best practice of using information and communication technologies (ICT’s) to enhance health services and population health over the past decade. The one-day event will look experiences and technologies along three axes: a) the validation and evaluation of the use of ICT’s in international health; b) the role of openSource applications and c) the challenges and opportunities of mobile technologies (‘mhealth’).

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