Weekly News Roundup
News, Events and Observations about Health Markets in the Developing World
General News
Population Services International (PSI) recently published a study that looked at condom social marketing in sub-Saharan Africa. The study found that “condom social marketing interventions have advanced and achieved the goals of improving use and making condoms available in the private sector.” Read more here.
According to a post on the The Economist’s Graphic Detail blog published February 29th, over the past 30 years, poverty rates have fallen in all regions of the world. Some notable take-aways: the number of people living on under $1.25 a day in the East Asia and Pacific region, and in China in particular, have shown the most dramatic decrease relative to other regions. See the chart and read more here.
Researchers from the University of Southern California, the RAND Corporation, and the World Bank recently published a report titled Firm-Level Perspectives on Public Sector Engagement with Private Healthcare Providers, which looked at survey evidence from Ghana and Kenya. The study found that “there may be considerable untapped potential for greater engagement with private health facilities- particularly pharmacies. Improving engagement [between the private and public sectors] will likely help governments with limited resources to better take advantage of the private sector capacity to… accelerate the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals.”
Events
The fifth annual International Conference on ICT4D will be held at the Georgia Institute of Technology March 12-15, 2012. To find out more about the conference and to register, click here.
The Sankalp Summit, one of Asia’s largest conferences that brings together social enterprises, impact investors, policy makers, and academics, will be held in Mumbai, India April 12-13, 2012.
The 3rd African Regulatory Conference (ARC), a forum for African regulatory authorities to interact with representatives of the pharmesutical industry, will take place in Accra, Ghana May 3-4, 2012. The conference is being jointly organized by the Drug Information Association (DIA), the African Regulatory Network, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.
Contests
Grand Challenges Canada is organizing a new contest called The Rising Stars in Global Health program, which will provide $100,000 CAD for up to 30 successful proof-of-concept proposals. Up to six additional scale-up grants of up to $1 million CAD will be awarded to applicants who have demonstrated success at the proof of concept stage. To apply, click here!