‘Exclusive breast-feeding will reduce infant mortality’ – Newindpress.com. This really should not be news. Everyone in the entire world should know it by now. Babies who are breastfed are less likely to die. In its own way, though, it is good news that the media is willing to keep on writing the same story.
Author: Alanna Shaikh
According to its “About” page, “AiDA is the largest online directory of official development aid activities. It offers a quick overview of who is doing what in international development, where they are doing it, and with what funds.” In a sad, sad commentary on the tremendous difficulty of donor cooperation, it’s already out of date.
A love letter to my last job
(you don’t have to be crazy to work there but it helps)
I love that we are first in and last out, that we’re boots on the ground when the bullets are still in the air and we stay until we’re genuinely no longer needed. I love our unruly and brilliant country directors. I love that this is the smartest group of people with whom I have ever had the pleasure of working. I love always having someone to talk to on skype. I love that everyone here has field experience and is mysteriously lacking in any sense of self-preservation.
I love being part of a team, a team that does something that matters and does it well. I love the way this job combines competition and idealism, that we set out to help people and we set out to win. I love winning. I love that my job is difficult but I can do it anyway. I love that most of us would be completely helpless when trying to do our work if it wasn’t for all the other people who fill in the gaps. I love the way everyone here has a useful background, be it child survival, sociology, engineering, or the marine corps. I love working in an office that is highly tolerant of eccentricity. I love being judged on results and not how well I know my place in the hierarchy. I love having keys to the office.
I love the way people’s eyes light up when I tell them what I do for a living, once they finally understand. I love that the list of the places we work sounds like a travel guide from hell. I love hearing the taser crackle in the middle of slow afternoons, and that one day we had to send Amy up to the roof because of the tear gas. I love watching Al-Jazeera (and occasionally the world cup) scroll across the TV, and the PR guy sprint down the hall for some urgent media reason.
I love that even though we need the money to do what we do, it’s not actually about the money. I love having MSF hand over their hospitals to us because they leave at arbitrary points and we struggle and suffer and scream to stay, as long as there is need. I love that everyone I’ve met is still an idealist at heart. I love the thousand layers of bitter cynicism that covers the idealism. I love watching the news and knowing that I can do something about it, even if it is only a tiny bit.
I love sitting at my desk at seven pm and knowing I am not the only one there. I love writing a good proposal. I love seeing our logo on the news. I love how completely surreal our field problems tend to be, I love that we put our field programs first, and I love that our field programs are good.
Just to help this blog earn the title of eclectic, an incredibly depressing story about polar bears in zoos.Aside from being really depressing, I think this article points to a larger issue of the way that the emotional impact of a compelling narrative can overwhelm good programming. For example, in Community Therapeutic Feeding Programs — they found that inpatient care will inevitably draw resources away from more effective outpatient care, because malnourished children are so compelling that human beings will always commit their energy to the child in front of them.
That’s as it should be. None of us wants to be someone who could ignore a starving child (or starving polar bear cub). But we also need to go beyond gut instinct if we want to get the best result for our efforts.
The LA Times is on a roll lately with the excellent global health reporting. This piece is about dengue fever. It posits, and I agree, that we’re going to see more and more “foreign” diseases on American soil. This is a result of climate change, and of increased international travel. We are also, of course, woefully unprepared to cope with the impact of these illnesses. Plenty of knowledgeable people agree.
The influenza blogs make it very, very clear that bird flu is on the rise and getting very little media attention. I make a point of staying on top of global health news and I had no idea we’d seen so many cases of avian influenza in Asia.
Another depressing but accurate report on US health care: http://www.healthbeatblog.org/2008/01/the-newest-last.html.
Link I like
A truly amazing blog on global health: http://blogs.cgdev.org/globalhealth. It’s a group blog, with many contributors, and they are able to really get into the details on global health topics without being so obscure that only a health professional can understand. I learn something every time I read. At present they’ve got a nice post leading on using checklists to improve the quality of health care.