Why Donors are Giving Up on Rural Needy and Other Reports
Every week, Rural Reporters collate reports on development in rural Africa and its environs. The reports include some of our top picks from recent must-read research, interviews, reports, blogs and in-depth articles which have been carefully selected to help you keep up with global issues. Here are some of the updates you may have missed from the previous week:
Here’s a rundown of the top stories making headlines in rural Africa this week.
More than 100 local organisations involved mostly with HIV-prevention, children, gender-based violence and sex workers face a crisis because a major international donor is redirecting its funding from rural areas to major cities.
Global Fund, based in Switzerland, which works with organisations to fight HIV, tuberculosis and malaria, donates R1.7 billion for a period of three years.
The money goes to prominent organisations, including Lifeline, Childline, Thuthuzela Care Centres (TCCs) attached to courts to help sexual assault victims, the Sex Workers’ Education and Advocacy Task Force (Sweat), People Against Woman Abuse (Powa) and Partners in Sexual Health.
Attacking Poverty at Its Roots: A Global Perspective on Community Development
“Do you believe in predestination?” asks Lena Robinson, Community Development Regional Manager for Northern California. It’s an unusual way to start a career summary, but then again, fate seems to have guided the series of events that led Robinson to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
While earning her bachelor’s degree in Japanese from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, Robinson was traveling throughout Asia. A chance encounter with a child in the Philippines first sparked her passion for attacking the roots of poverty.
“I grew up here in San Francisco and had never seen poverty like in Asia. I had a little child come up to me, begging for money. That child was clearly a biracial child of somebody of African origin. It touched me in such a profound way,” she recalls.
Help, our elders want us to remain beggars!
A group of visually-impaired men at the popular Idi-Araba community in Lagos, speak to Gboyega Alaka about their hunger for education and vocational skills and their battle to overcome overbearing elders, who’d rather they remained beggars.
Bridging Gaps in implementing the SDGs in Africa: The Environment Lens
September 2015 saw Africa’s Heads of States and Governments join their counterparts from across the globe to unanimously adopt the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) at the 70th UN General Assembly.
This signaled a common global intent to transition into economic, social and environmental progress in the next 15 years: a united, mutually collective front against hunger, malnutrition, poverty, unemployment, disease, climate change, low agricultural productivity, degraded ecosystems and social inequity, among the notable challenges facing Africa.
Drone Deliveries Fight HIV Infection In Rural Africa
Unicef along with the Malawi government are leading a trial based on the use of drones to reduce waiting times for HIV test results in infants living in rural areas.
Malawi has a national HIV prevalence rate of 10 percent, still one of the highest in the world. Currently it can take almost two months to get samples from a healthcare facility to an equipped lab and for the results to be returned.
Judith Sherman of Unicef HIV programme explained: “There are many delays in the continuum of getting HIVpositive children on treatment, they need to come in early for testing, ideally before 2 months, between 6 and 8 weeks, their tests, the dry bloodspots need to get from the health facilities to one of the 8 laboratories nationwide”
