“Man holds in his mortal hands the power to abolish all forms of human poverty and all forms of human life”.
This quote from President John F Kennedy’s 1960 inaugural address was repeated to me by a fellow delegate at the start of the UN NGO Conference on Global Health this week.
It was a powerful statement, and (as it turned out) indicated the passion, inspiration and cautious optimism that would be conveyed by speakers and delegates over the next three days. The passion for change brought representatives of over than 300 NGOs to Melbourne.... the inspiration delivered by the international leaders who addressed the delegation.... and the cautious optimism of all attendees who know that while we have the capacity and resources to meet the MDGs, we still lack the international political will to do so.
Over the three days of speeches, Roundtables, workshops and networking lunches, a number of themes emerged:
The need to recognise the interdependency of the MDGs. While MDGs 4, 5 & 6 are often the focus of health related discussion, speakers emphasised the fact that all the MDGs are interlinked, and that achieving universal primary education and gender equality are also crucial to improving health outcomes. This point was emphasised in the Day 2 Workshop on Gender and Healthcare when Dr Desiree Yap raised the greater difficulties that are being faced right now by female-headed households in Pakistan in the competition for food and resources.
The importance of engaging communities with development projects. Every day, speakers came back to the fact that the best development outcomes come when developing communities are central to the projects. Navanethem Pillay, the UN commissioner for Human Rights emphasised that ‘in designing solutions, the most vulnerable must be engaged as proponents and agents of change’.
The need to think beyond the MDGs. While speakers emphasised the importance and benefits of the MDGs, there was also an emphasis on the need to not consider them a definitive or final goal. Reference was made to needs that exist in addition to the MDGs, like the need to address non-communicable diseases like diabetes; and that the fact that achievement of the MDGs will not end all global health problems, and that further investment will need to be made.
While the Conference featured a number of outstanding international speakers with incredible experience and expertise on global health – I was proud that some of the highlights of the conference were speeches given by Australians:
Collingwood Footballer Harry O’Brien’s gave a passionate speech to youth delegates, emphasising unity as the key to effective and efficient change
Former Australian Youth Ambassador to the UN Chris Varney’s speech of impassioned optimism and hope was incredibly moving and received the conference’s second standing ovation.
In addition to the fantastic representation of hope and passion from these Australians, were these notable comments:
Everywhere that men are poor, women are poorer – Dr Desiree Yap
If you can’t do advocacy, you’re not going to make a difference in the world - Sue Ndwala
[To the youth of the world] We have failed you miserably. We prepare you to be engineers... we should be training you to be activists - Dr Claudio Schuftan
The UN’s work is measured by the things we cannot see – the uncountable horrors its benchmarks have prevented – Chris Varney
Another remarkable moment of the conference came when Dr Sue Wareham commented on the allocation of $1.46 trillion dollars a year on war, while less than a tenth of this could achieve the MDGs. Her comment on the potential of reallocation was made at an incredibly opportune time, as shortly after I received this tweet:
@BarackObama: I made a pledge to the American people as a candidate for this office - and tonight the American combat mission in Iraq has ended"
I cannot do justice to the incredible wisdom shared at the 63rd Annual Conference, but I will be blogging further about comments on Australia’s unique position opportunity to combat poverty, as mentioned at the Conference. Until then, for more information about Conference content, you can read the text of the Declaration adopted by the delegation, or visit the conference website.
In the developing world millions of people are dependent on their immediate environment for their food, livelihoods, sanitation and shelter. This makes them very vulnerable when changes in their environment occur. An unpredictable environment can be catastrophic, for example millions of people rely on seasonal rains to water crops, refresh wells, lakes and rivers. When they are late or fail the consequences are widespread and disastrous.
The seventh Millennium Development Goal – ensuring environmental sustainability – is about trying to reduce the control that a person’s environment has over their life, by improving the environment and ensuring that it is preserved for future generations.
An important part of this is about having clean water to drink and sanitation facilities.
The video shows how improving Stidia’s environment, through the provision of clean water to her village, truly changed her life. This Tearfund project meant that, as well as improving her family and community’s access to water, she was no longer open to attack when walking for miles to collect water. The time saved meant she was able to go to school, improving her future prospects immeasurably.
Beyond the time saved by the water-tank, Stidia and her family are also now less at risk of drinking dirty water. Diahorrea caused by dirty water kills almost 2 million children every year.
Clean water and improved sanitation can also mean fewer intestinal parasites – what we often think of as worms. There’s some fascinating research that suggests that worms are one of the biggest factors preventing children from attending school. Therefore, by improving sanitation we would not need to spend so much on antibiotics and medical treatments for such conditions, and we could improve the numbers of children in education significantly.
These examples are an important reminder that one intervention to fight poverty can have important follow-on effects.
The good news is that we are on course to meet the 2015 target of halving the proportion of the population without sustainable access to safe drinking water. But – the same can’t be said for sanitation, where half the population of developing regions still lack basic sanitation facilities like toilets. Our governments need to know we care about these problems, and that when we target water and sanitation, we make it easier to meet the other MDG goals.
I met Professor Alan Fenwick at a 1.4 Billion Reasons presentation in May at Imperial College in London. Before the presentation we were chatting about the way that money gets allocated to fight disease around the world, and the shocking fact that we allow some of the simplest and easiest to treat diseases to persist.
We were talking about the neglected tropical diseases – a group of infections like Trachoma, Schitsosomaisis and worms which affect one billion people on our planet. They’re not formally part of the Millennium Development Goal framework, but they’re an essential element of the fight against poverty.
Yet, as this video shows, many of them are easily treatable and preventable. It costs just 50p – that’s less than one US dollar – to treat the seven most common neglected tropical diseases for a year. It’s not sophisticated, it’s not complicated – it’s just basic medicine.
As Professor Fenwick says in an article he wrote for the journal Science, “The current generation of children in many countries could soon be free of parasitic worm infections, better nourished, and better able to attend school and perform in class.”
What is needed to make this a reality is support for initiatives like this, both from members of the public and from government – which you can do at http://50pence.org/.
‘The way I was feeling in May, it was like I was already dead’: The Lazarus Effect
This remarkable half hour film documents a modern phenomenon called the Lazarus Effect.The film’s title comes from the biblical figure of Lazarus, who was brought back to life by Jesus after four days dead.
In reality, a similar type of miracle is happening all over the world, in the form of antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV/AIDS.
This video, produced in collaboration with the (Red) campaign provides us with an insight into living with HIV in the developing world. It shows people of all ages at very serious stages of their illness, all whom are able to make a rapid recovery. The incredible part is that it shows you exactly how far along you can progress with the disease and still almost do a U-turn after taking ARVs. With these drugs, less and less people are deemed a lost cause.
The drugs work, so why is that people are still dying? In other words, what are the complicating issues? Money is one. More free ARVs are becoming available, but in places where the drugs are not free, it is often a choice between buying the medicine or feeding your family.
Social stigma is another problem. Where the subject is not spoken about openly, people with HIV receive no support in the community. Alone and afraid, sometimes it feels better to pretend it is not happening at all.
General lack of information about HIV and ARVs means that many people do not get tested at all. I’ll confess that until I did a bit of research (readily available on the internet), I didn’t really know much about antiretrovirals. How long does it take before you feel better? Are there any circumstances in which they don’t work? Do they work in preventing mother to child transmission during pregnancy?
With all these questions, and no official information its would be easy to make incorrect assumptions which might result in not taking the drugs on time, or not getting tested at all. To those who don’t know about ARVs, having HIV equates to a death sentence.
Work is being done to overcome these obstacles. The video features a woman named Constance Mudenda, who works tirelessly in Zambia to create a network of support for HIV sufferers. Having lost all three of her children to the disease, she no longer wants people to have to endure that kind of grief.
Initiatives such as Constance’s support group, help to eradicate the social alienation of being HIV positive. All the peer educators in her clinic are HIV positive, so they can speak from experience, gain the patient’s trust and talk openly about the disease.
People can turn their future around once they start taking ARVs, but this does not happen without the right environment. People need accurate information, support, and a forum to communicate with others. If the information is there but no one is receiving it, then it may as well not exist.
The Lazarus Effect is truly a miracle of science, and thankfully more people are living longer with HIV. However, there is always the human aspect to consider. Aid programs that distribute antiretroviral drugs must also factor in the importance of creating an enabling environment, in order to effect the change they want.
With the upcoming replenishment of the Global Fund, there's an opportunity for all of us to contribute to making sure that we have the funds to scale up the fight against Malaria. That's why we've teamed up with our partners at RESULTS UK, and are giving people the in the UK the chance to write to your local MP about the Global Fund. If you're in another country, you can use the same information as the base to contact your local politicians to ask them to ensure that your government does their bit too.
Our friends at the British Council's Global Changemakers program have just released this video of how their network of young community activists are working to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.
These young people are examples of just the sort of work that we need to see more if we're going to achieve the eight millennium development goals by 2015.
With just a month to go until the Review Summit in New York, we at the Global Poverty Project will be working hard to build momentum and support to ensure that our leaders stand by their promises.
We'll be releasing our own viral video in just 10 days that puts you right in the middle of the fight against extreme poverty - but in the meantime, we'd love to know what you're doing to help us the eight millennium development goals?
The Millennium Development Goals
1. Eradicate Extreme Poverty and Hunger
2. Achieve Universal Primary Education
3. Promote Gender Equality and Empower Women
4. Reduce Child Mortality
5. Improve Maternal Health
6. Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and Other Diseases
7. Ensure Environmental Sustainability
8. Develop a Global Partnership for Development
This video, produced in collaboration with the 
