How are the healthcare needs of children changing in the developing world? How can poor countries most effectively use limited resources to improve child health? What should their priorities be? To design effective strategies for improving health, it is important to know the most significant problems and select appropriate cost-effective approaches.

To change the situation and mainstream HIV/AIDS as a cross-sectoral issue in the final PRSP, the Government of Mali, in collaboration with the HIV/AIDS Theme Group, convened a three day workshop on “Integrating HIV/AIDS into the final PRSP” in Bamako, in September 2001.The main objective of the workshop was to elaborate a multi-sectoral HIV/AIDS action plan to insert in the final PRSP.

There have always been speculations and forecasts about the world's capacity to feed itself. However, to date, few studies have undertaken a comparison of predictions and projections with actual outcomes. As modeling and projecting global food security continues to grow more complex and expensive, revisiting the key predictions and projections of the last half century, and assessing how accurate they were, should provide valuable insights for future exercises.

Salary : £21,479pa to £24,129 p.a.
Location : Harare, Zimbabwe
Closing Date : 14 Nov 2001
Posted on : 23 Oct 2001

Salary : $$58,000
Location : Luanda, Angola
Closing Date : 31 Dec 2001
Posted on : 24 Oct 2001

Read about this attempt to create an Internet Library. It is the largest database in the world. Well worth a visit.

The effect of AIDS in South Africa is "shattering" and too much time is spent in academic discussions about its cause, Archbishop Desmond Mpilo Tutu has warned.

Admitting that it has failed to combat hunger, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has urged the industrialized world to come to the aid of developing nations.

A new polio eradication campaign which aims to achieve a polio-free certification for Ethiopia in 2005 will get under way on 9 November, a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) spokesman told IRIN on Thursday.

Despite a good harvest in certain highly productive areas Kenya, drought conditions have persisted well beyond expectations in Kenya's arid and semi-arid lands, the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) reported on Tuesday in appealing for cash donations from donors to allow the purchase of relief food in Kenya itself.

Ghana is developing plans to produce generic versions of antiretroviral drugs, Reuters reports.

Six men have been charged with raping a nine-month-old South African baby, allegedly because they thought the act would cure them of HIV, the South African Press Association reports. The attack occurred less than one week before two other South African girls under the age of four were also raped, allegedly by family members.

Following the review of guidance on smallpox vaccination, WHO has consulted with our advisory committee and has updated the official guidance.

Despite having had most of the social determinants of health in their favour, men have higher mortality rates for all 15 leading causes of death and a life expectancy about seven years shorter than women's. Men's reluctance to embrace preventive strategies has also contributed to the spread of AIDS, particularly in Africa, and to an alarming rise in infections among young men, including other sexually transmitted diseases. Furthermore, there is a sustained increase in psychosocial disorders in men, including alcohol and substance abuse, mid-life crisis, depression, and domestic violence. Men's increasing aggression and autoaggression remain an unsolved health and societal problem. As you read this, over 30 wars and conflicts rage around the world, mostly created, maintained, and aggravated by men.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has urged governments and professionals to highlight the plight of mentally impaired people living in Africa, where their condition is often misunderstood or left untreated.

Representatives from Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Republic of Congo and Rwanda were among participants from 15 African nations who agreed to lobby their governments to contribute at least 10 percent of the health budget for treatment of mental illness, WHO announced.

There is an almost total absence of laws protecting the human rights of those with HIV/AIDS in developing countries worldwide, according to a study appearing in the Oct. 1 issue of the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes.

Artists for Human Rights are pleased to announce that the HIV/AIDS Billboard/Portfolio has now been completed and are being prepared for the
exhibition program. This program is being launched on World AIDS Day,1st Dec 2001, at the Durban Art Gallery and the National Art Gallery, Cape Town. Further exhibitions will be held in South Africa, Botswana and Scotland with an exhibition at the Palais des Nation, Geneve, on the 8th July 2002. If interested in hosting the above exhibition please contact Artists for Human Rights.

The Government of the Central African Republic (CAR) and Japanese NGO Amis d'Afrique (Friends of Africa) signed a letter of agreement on Wednesday for a US $630,000 grant in support of reinforcing HIV/AIDS responses in communities in the CAR, the World Bank announced from Bangui.