Education/Development

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Missed Opportunities : The High Cost of Not Educating Girls
World Bank Report
QUENTIN WODON, CLAUDIO MONTENEGRO, HOA NGUYEN, AND ADENIKE ONAGORUWA
JULY 2018 :: 64 pages
PDF: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/29956/HighCostOfNotEducatingGirls.pdf?sequence=5&isAllowed=y
Abstract
Too many girls drop out of school prematurely, especially in low income countries. Low educational attainment for girls has negative consequences not only for them, but also for their children and household, as well as for their community and society.

This study documents the potential impacts of educational attainment for girls and women in six domains: (1) earnings and standards of living; (2) child marriage and early childbearing; (3) fertility and population growth; (4) health, nutrition, and well-being; (5) agency and decision-making; and (6) social capital and institutions. The results are sobering: the potential economic and social costs of not educating girls are large.

Low educational attainment reduces expected earnings in adulthood, and it depresses labor force participation, leading to lower standards of living. When girls drop out of school prematurely, they are much more likely to marry as children, and have their first child before the age of 18 when they may not yet be ready to be wife and mothers. This in turn is associated with higher rates of fertility and population growth, which in low income countries are major impediments for reaping the benefits of the demographic dividend. Low educational attainment is also associated with worse health and nutrition outcomes for women and their children, leading among others to higher under-five mortality and stunting.

Girls who drop out of school also suffer in adulthood from a lack of agency and decision-making ability within the household, and in society more generally. They are also less likely to report engaging in altruistic behaviors such as donating to charity, volunteering, or helping others. Finally, when girls and women are better educated, they may be better able to assess the quality of the basic services they rely on and the quality of their country’s institutions and leaders.

These negative impacts have large economic costs, leading among others to losses in human capital wealth (future lifetime earnings of the labor force) estimated at $15 trillion to $30 trillion. Educating girls is not only the right thing to do: it is also a smart economic investment.

Press Release
Not Educating Girls Costs Countries Trillions of Dollars, Says New World Bank Report
WASHINGTON, July 11, 2018 – Limited educational opportunities for girls and barriers to completing 12 years of education cost countries between $15 trillion and $30 trillion in lost lifetime productivity…

Today, some 132 million girls around the world between the ages of 6 and 17 are still not in school —75 percent of whom are adolescents. To reap the full benefits of education, countries need to improve both access and quality so that all girls have the opportunity to learn. These investments are especially crucial in some regions, such as Sub-Saharan Africa where, on average, only 40 percent of girls complete lower secondary school. Countries also need policies to support healthy economic growth than will generate jobs for an expanding educated workforce.

Women with secondary education also have a better ability to make decisions in their household, including for their own health care. They are less likely to experience intimate partner violence, and they report higher levels of psychological well-being. They also have healthier children who are less likely to be malnourished and who are more likely to go to school and learn. Finally, better education for girls makes them more likely to participate fully in society and be active members of their community.

Educating girls and promoting gender equality is part of a broader and holistic effort at the World Bank, which includes financing and analytical work to remove financial barriers that keep girls out of school, prevent child marriage, improve access to reproductive health services, and strengthen skills and job opportunities for adolescent girls and young women. Since 2016, the World Bank has invested more than $3.2 billion in education projects benefiting adolescent girls.

The report was published with support from the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, the Global Partnership for Education, and Malala Fund.

Human Rights – Equal Access to Justice/SDG 16

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Achieving equal access to justice for all by 2030: lessons from global funds
Working and discussion papers | July 2018 | Marcus Manuel and Clare Manuel
ODI – Overseas Development Institute 2018.: 32 pages
[Excerpts]
Introduction
This paper reviews the experience of global funds and explores whether lessons could usefully be applied to supporting Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.3’s commitment to equal access to justice for all by 2030. In other areas, including agriculture, health, climate change and education, global funds focused on specific problems have become a key part of international aid architecture. Global fund performance has varied, but the best ones, particularly those relating to health, have been successful in improving both the quality and
quantity of aid: building multi-stakeholder partnerships, marshalling resources, enhancing the long-term visibility of resource flows, generating innovative approaches and delivering results.

The paper begins with a brief overview in section 2 of why access to justice matters and the challenges of providing it, including funding gaps. Section 3 briefly summarises donor engagement with justice to date, and section 4 looks at current promising international
initiatives to engage with SDG 16.3. Section 5 provides an introduction to global funds and then section 6 examines their common characteristics and explores how applicable these might be to the challenges of providing access to justice. Section 7 sets out three options for donor re-engagement. Section 8 sets out three key conclusions and possible next steps, namely:
1) it is premature to try and assess whether a large-scale global justice fund would be appropriate, as much more work needs to be done including on establishing funding gaps;
2) SDG 16.3’s two indicators for the first time provide an internationally agreed framework around two specific results for donor and partner countries to improve access to justice globally and there is a case for a small scale pilot fund focused on one or both of these indicators; and
3) there is a case for exploratory consultations on how to achieve significant donor re-engagement in low-income countries

Key Messages
:: Access to justice is associated with economic growth and social development and its provision is a core state function. But billions of people have limited access to justice. Donor support for justice systems is low in most countries and has fallen by 40% globally in the last four years. Thinking on long-term scaled-up funding for accessible justice is in its infancy.

:: The principles and approaches underlying global funds in other areas provide useful lessons for how to achieve Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 16.3’s commitment to equal access to justice for all, including strengthening international commitment; stronger focus on learning and innovation; more effective collective donor effort and management of risk; deeper engagement with national government systems and strategies to scale up sustainable approaches; and creating new funding and partnerships.

:: It is too early to assess whether a large-scale global fund would be appropriate or feasible to support access to justice for all, given the challenges and political nature of the justice system. More work needs to be done first, including to establish precise funding needs.

:: In the meantime, there is a case for developing a small-scale pilot pooled donor fund focused on a specific SDG 16.3 indicator, available on a demand-driven basis to a limited number of countries. This would enable cross-country learning. It would also provide insights into the functioning of the system as a whole; global fund experience is that an initial focus on a specific ‘vertical’ issue over time turns into broader engagement.

:: There is also a case for undertaking exploratory consultations on how to achieve significant donor reengagement in low-income countries.

::::::

[p.15] Global vertical funds: a brief overview
…Vertical funds are global programmes for allocating aid that focus on a particular thematic issue across countries. They have been referred to as ‘goal-based investment partnerships’, working to deliver clearly articulated targets (Gartner and Kharas, 2013; Schmidt-Traub and Sachs, 2015). The aim is to scale up resources and impact, with donor funds crowding in other funding. By 2013 the top ten vertical funds represented approximately one seventh of all programmable aid, and in some important sectors accounted for over half of all donor commitments (ibid; ibid.). Most of these new generation vertical funds emerged in response to specific global challenges in the wake of the Millennium Development Goals.

Prominent examples include two health funds, namely the Global Fund for AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (‘the Global Fund’) and the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations (GAVI), the International Fund for Agricultural Development,30 and the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program. There are also a range of climate funds (Nakhooda et al., 2015). Since 2013 the number of funds has continued to grow. Another health fund, the Global Financing Facility in support of Every Woman, Every Child, was launched in 2015 and the Education Cannot Wait Fund in 2016. Calls continue for further new approaches in the education sector to mobilise additional resources, reduce fragmentation and promote innovation (Schäferhoff and Burnett, 2016).

The funds have differing management, governance and implementation practices. Some have been more successful than others. In some cases, there has been criticism of vertical funds’ limited support to countries’ development of sustainable national systems and limited coordination with other donors in-country.31 A series of reviews (Isenman et al., 2010; Gartner and Kharas, 2013; Schmidt-Traub and Sachs, 2015; Sachs and Schmidt-Traub,2017; Schmidt-Traub, 2018a) suggest that performance is strongly connected to fund design. Funds with more
participatory governance structures, more independence and greater beneficiary involvement, clear performance-based metrics, and a close link between performance and
funding (including competitive allocation of funds) have demonstrated more success in resource mobilisation, impact, innovation, learning and scaling up. The Global Fund and GAVI stand out in this respect and have been credited with bringing in new private-sector actors and enabling rapid scale-up from a global goal to successful implementation on a global scale (Gartner and Kharas, 2013; Schmidt-Traub and Sachs, 2015).
30 Which dates from an earlier era (1971).
31 See for example DFID’s latest business case and annual review of the Global Fund (DFID, 2018a; 2018b).

Development – Long Term Scenarios for World Economy

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The Long View: Scenarios for the World Economy to 2060
OECD Economic Policy Paper No.22
Authors: Yvan Guillemette and David Turner
12 Jul 2018 : 51 pages
PDF: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/deliver/b4f4e03e-en.pdf?itemId=%2Fcontent%2Fpaper%2Fb4f4e03e-en&mimeType=pdf
[Editor’s text bolding]

Overview
This paper presents long-run economic projections for 46 countries, extending the short-run projections of the Spring 2018 OECD Economic Outlook. It first sets out a baseline scenario under the assumption that countries do not carry out institutional and policy reforms. This scenario is then used as a reference point to illustrate the potential impact of structural reforms in alternative scenarios, including better governance and educational attainment in the large emerging-market economies and competition-friendly product market and labour market reforms in OECD economies.
Flexibility-enhancing labour market reforms not only boost living standards but, by raising the employment rate, also help alleviate fiscal pressures associated with population ageing. Another scenario illustrates the potential positive impact of linking the pensionable age to life expectancy on the participation rate of older workers, and in particular that of women.
Additional scenarios illustrate the potential economic gains from raising public investment and spending more on research and development. A final ‘negative’ scenario shows how slipping back on trade liberalisation – returning to 1990 average tariff rates – might depress standards of living everywhere.

Main Findings
Baseline scenario with no institutional or policy changes
:: World trend real GDP growth declines from about 3½ per cent now to 2% in 2060, mainly due to a deceleration of large emerging economies as these continue to account for the bulk of world growth. India and China take up a rising share of world output as the world’s economic centre of gravity shifts toward Asia.
:: Living standards (real GDP per capita) continue to advance in all countries through 2060 and gradually converge toward those of the most advanced countries, but to varying degrees. Living standards in high-growth emerging market and Eastern European economies converge most, driven by catch-up in trend labour efficiency, but GDP per capita in the BRIICS and some low-income OECD countries remains below half that of the United States in 2060. Demographic change weighs on growth in OECD living standards through 2060.
:: Stabilising public debt ratios at current levels while meeting fiscal pressures from higher health spending and demographic change requires the median OECD government to raise primary revenue by 6½ percentage points of GDP by 2060.
:: A global saving glut has been putting downward pressure on real interest rates in recent years, a trend that may persist.

Alternative scenarios with institutional or policy reforms
:: Relative to OECD countries, the BRIICS have substantial room to improve the quality of governance and raise educational attainment. In a scenario where both factors catch up with average OECD levels by 2060, living standards in the BRIICS are 30% to 50% higher in 2060 than in the baseline scenario.
:: Reforms through 2030 to make product market regulation in OECD countries as friendly to competition as in the five leading countries raise living standards by over 8% in aggregate (as much as 15-20% in the countries furthest away from best practices).
:: A reform package to improve labour market policy settings in OECD countries up to those of leading countries raises the aggregate employment rate by 6½ percentage points by 2040, mostly via higher youth and female employment. The package raises living standards by 10% by 2060 and helps alleviate future fiscal pressures related to ageing.
:: Tying future increases in pensionable ages to life expectancy, as some countries have done, raises the aggregate employment rate of older people in the OECD by more than 5 percentage points by 2060 and living standards by about 2½ per cent by 2060 (as much as 5-7% in countries with currently no explicit plans to change pensionable ages).
:: Boosting R&D intensity in all OECD countries to the level of the five leading countries raises aggregate living standards by 6% by 2060 (as much as 10-18% in countries currently spending little on R&D).
:: Permanently raising public investment in all OECD countries to 6% of GDP raises aggregate living standards by over 4% by 2060 (as much as 6-9% in some countries). Fiscal burdens rise by much less than the cost of the additional investment and the policy is even self-financing in some countries.
:: Slipping back on trade liberalisation – returning to 1990 average tariff rates – depresses long-run living standards by 14% for the world as a whole and as much as 15-25% in the most affected countries.

Sustainable Development – Smallholder Agriculture/Satellite Technology

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Digital and Satellite Technology Program Launches to Support Ghana’s Smallholder Cocoa Farmers
ACCRA, GHANA, July 10, 2018 – ACCRA, GHANA, July 10, 2018 – SAT4Farming, an initiative to reach thousands of small-scale cocoa producers with information and services to improve their productivity and sustainability, was announced today. It is designed to use digital technology and satellite imagery to create individual Farm Development Plans (FDPs) that guide farmers over a seven-year period.

The digital FDPs provide a planning and monitoring tool, available over mobile devices. Advice on farm practices and investments, climate-adaptation, certification training, and ongoing monitoring provide farmers and field agents with unprecedented data-based guidance to a more sustainable future.

Smallholder farmers produce the vast majority of the world’s cocoa, the basic ingredient for chocolate. Cocoa farmers face declining yields, mounting threats from pests and disease, and persistent poverty. In addition, farmers rarely get the timely training and advice they need to change their circumstances. In Ghana, 800,000 smallholder farmers make the country the world’s second largest cocoa producer.

SAT4Farming partners include the global nonprofits the Rainforest Alliance and Grameen Foundation; global cocoa trader Touton; the University of Ghana’s Department of Agricultural Economics and Agribusiness; the Netherlands-based Satelligence and WaterWatch Projects.
With the launch, Touton has begun deploying the SAT4Farming digital FDP among its network of farmers and suppliers for Mars, Inc., one of the world’s largest chocolate makers. Meanwhile, Mars suppliers across a number of countries are adopting similar approaches to support a more sustainable cocoa sector by improving smallholders’ livelihoods and protecting the environment. COCOBOD fully supports the program implementation in Ghana.

SAT4Farming builds on a pilot in Indonesia where Mars, the Rainforest Alliance and Grameen Foundation partnered to create the digital FDP. It is based on a specialized agronomic model for cocoa that includes digital certification performance information. In Ghana, the integration of satellite imagery is expected to streamline the process of creating an FDP, facilitate monitoring, and provide greater insights into dynamic environmental conditions.

Initial funding comes from the Geodata for Agriculture and Water (G4AW) program of the Netherlands Space Office (NSO). The program plans to launch a social enterprise that will make SAT4Farming services widely available and ensure the economic sustainability of the work.

Featured Journal Content

Nature
Volume 559 Issue 7713, 12 July 2018
http://www.nature.com/nature/current_issue.html
Comment | 11 July 2018
Grand challenges in humanitarian aid
Fund and study these priorities for natural and social sciences to meet a gaping need, urge Abdallah S. Daar, Trillium Chang, Angela Salomon and Peter A. Singer.

What are Global Alliance for Humanitarian Innovation and Grand Challenges Canada?
The need for innovation in the humanitarian space was recognized at the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul10 in May 2016. The largest ever United Nations gathering, this had 9,000 participants from at least 173 countries, including 55 heads of state and governments, hundreds of private-sector representatives, and thousands of people from civil society and non-governmental organizations, including multilateral development banks such as the World Bank.

The summit created the Global Alliance for Humanitarian Innovation with the mission of achieving higher impact and efficiency in humanitarian action11. It complements several initiatives, including Global Humanitarian Lab, Global Partnerships for Humanitarian Impact and Innovation, and the Canadian Humanitarian Assistance Fund. Unfortunately, many of these have insufficient funding to address the magnitude of the problem by creating a healthy pipeline of seed innovations; most do not have the capacity to scale them up.

Grand Challenges Canada (GCC), supported by the Government of Canada, funds technological, social and business innovations in global health. Since its founding in 2010, GCC has supported 1,000 projects in more than 80 countries (see go.nature.com/2jyaozb). The leaders of GCC have a track record of partnering to identify priorities that catalyse the creation of impactful research funding programmes at the global level. These include: the Bill & Melinda Gates Grand Challenges in Global Health programme, based on a 2003 study5; the Global Alliance for Chronic Diseases, based on a 2007 study6; and the Global Mental Health Initiative of the US National Institute for Mental Health and GCC, based on a 2011 study7.
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Top 10 Humanitarian Grand Challenges
PDF Version
1 STRENGTHEN ECONOMIES (147 cumulative score)
Priority:
Restore functioning markets and the economic stability of affected communities by:
• Scaling up cash-based assistance (rather than in-kind commodities)
• Improving access to financial services
• Increasing autonomous choice over spending
• Expanding social safety-net programmes, such as provision of health care, shelter and transport
• Engaging cross-border refugees, particularly women, who are displaced to countries where they are forbidden to work outside camps*
Research questions:
• How can assistance be maximally scaled in humanitarian crises settings? What are the obstacles to achieving this and how can they be overcome?
• What potential financial services, formal and informal, are available to refugees and affected communities? How can safe and affordable access be improved?
• What are the economic advantages and disadvantages of allowing aid beneficiaries to receive cash and/or control their own spending, rather than receiving aid through material goods or medical supplies?
• What are the most effective ways to distribute cash digitally without compromising user data privacy (for example, via blockchain)?
• What are more affordable/effective ways for diaspora and others to send money to crisis-affected persons?

2 REDUCE INEQUALITY (141)
Priority:
Strengthen resilience in communities at risk of humanitarian crises by:
• Reducing inequality and poverty
• Promoting gender equality
• Improving education*
Research questions:
• How can communities vulnerable to humanitarian crises be identified proactively?
• What are effective ways to raise public awareness about potential disasters in communities not previously affected?
• How can a population be engaged in procuring and storing vital goods such as food, clothing, medical supplies, power generation and rescue equipment? How can these vital goods be most efficiently deployed?
• How do social determinants (such as poverty, gender inequality, low education; and ethnic, tribal and religious or other differences) perpetuate or aggravate humanitarian emergencies?
• How can maternal and child education and health services be more effective, and how can uptake be increased?

3 IMPROVE METRICS (138.5)
Priority:
Measure effectiveness of humanitarian aid by moving away from metrics that measure ‘cost-per-beneficiary’ to those that measure how the needs are met of:
• the most vulnerable
• the most systematically excluded
• the hardest-to-reach communities
Research questions:
• What are the most logical indicators for measuring lives saved and improved in humanitarian crises? This may include existing indicators, such as those in the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, if appropriate to the context.
• How can technological innovations, such as cloud computing and mobile devices, automate and improve the efficiency of measuring aid effectiveness over time?
• Can ‘big data’ resources such as messaging apps, user-generated maps, GPS, mobile-phone tracking, commercial transactions or electronic medical records be used to identify impacted populations, their needs and gaps in support?
• Do current monitoring and evaluation systems compromise the safety of affected people or place heavy burdens on responders? What are ways to overcome this while still meeting donor needs?

4 ADDRESS FUNDING (128)
Priority:
• Shift from short-term emergency funding toward longer-term humanitarian financing
• Ensure accountable, impactful investments that include incentives or subsidies for host governments to contribute alongside foreign assistance*
Research questions:
• How can states, humanitarian aid agencies, donors and others be effectively engaged in an effort to shift to sustainable funding?
• How effective are impact bonds in financing initiatives in humanitarian settings (recent onset or protracted)? What are other potentially transformative strategies to achieve multi-year funding for protracted crises?
• How can ‘risk insurance’, based on agreed-upon triggers, mitigate humanitarian disasters?

5 PROTECT IDENTITY (121)
Priority:
Provide affected persons with an official private, secure digital identity that reduces the risk of creating stateless persons.
This might:
• Incorporate a universal health card
• Safely and privately store, transport, validate authenticity of, and disseminate personal documents (such as bank cards, land deeds, birth certificates, school diplomas and medical records)*
Research questions:
• How effective have previous efforts been to establish Universal Health Cards, Universal Health Insurance and financial-risk protection for migrants (such as those used in Thailand8)?
• How effective have previous efforts been to issue digital identity cards to hard-to-reach populations (such as India’s Aadhaar9 system)?
• What are the advantages, disadvantages and long-term impacts of providing digital identities by countries of origin or by hosting governments?
• What are the ethical, legal and social issues that may arise in developing and disseminating such digital identities?
• What is the feasibility and impact of using highly secure, efficient technologies to store records in humanitarian settings? What are the potential drawbacks or consequences?

6 EXPEDITE AID (119)
Priority:
Remove all barriers to immediate aid following emergencies or after predetermined ‘triggers’ in slow-onset emergencies, such as restrictions on humanitarian organizations. This prevents the need to wait until public consciousness is raised and pressure applied to donor governments.
Research questions:
• What are the most effective international mechanisms and auspices under which to engage governments to develop partnerships for immediate disaster/emergency relief?
• How feasible and effective are crowdfunding platforms to speed the availability of money in crisis situations?
• How can mechanisms for regional neutral bodies to intervene rapidly in the case of disasters be better coordinated?
• How can the voices of those affected by crises be amplified most effectively?

7 SAVE MORE LIVES (117)
Priority:
Improve access to life-saving assistance for people living in areas that are highly insecure and largely inaccessible to international and national aid organizations.
Research questions:
• What methods promote and ensure compliance (of non-governmental organizations, governments) with international humanitarian law? How can such laws be strengthened?
• How can the private sector improve the delivery of aid and increase the speed, effectiveness and cost-efficiency of delivering or manufacturing commodities (such as by 3D printing) in hard-to-reach places?
• How can crisis-affected people be supported or empowered to create their own local solutions — such as by locally manufacturing and reusing items?
• In what ways can military know-how and capabilities, including transport and logistics, be used ethically in disaster responses? What are potential political obstacles, and how can they be overcome?

8 SUPPORT MENTAL HEALTH (116)
Priority:
Offer emergency psychosocial support at scale.
Research questions:
• How effective are culturally sensitive and locally applicable emergency intervention programmes based on the World Health Organization’s Mental Health Gap Action Programme for mental health and psychosocial support? Where are there gaps and how can they be filled?
• What are the most effective ways for health-care providers to advocate for the incorporation of established ethical principles and more counselling into emergency mental-health intervention programmes?
• What are the population metrics and outcome indicators for mental-health policy and programme surveillance?
• Can artificial intelligence (such as chatbots or apps) deliver mental-health and psychosocial support, in a culturally sensitive and effective manner?

9 DEMOCRATIZE DATA ACCESS (113)
Priority:
Increase (digital) connectivity of affected persons to democratize access to information and opportunities, including market prices, wage information, weather, jobs, banking, insurance and microfinance*.
Research questions:
• What culturally specific and community-based strategies will efficiently and effectively integrate crisis-affected people with worldwide data sources?
• How can mobile-network operators become valuable contributors to preparedness before, and responses after, humanitarian disasters?
• How effective are existing innovative ways to share data in humanitarian settings, such as mesh networks, bluetooth technology, microwave technology and peer-to-peer networks? What other novel strategies exist?

10 BOOST DIRECT COMMUNICATION (110.5)
Priority:
Facilitate direct two-way communications between affected persons and humanitarian agencies, for the sharing of needs, developments, plans and actions.
Research questions:
• What are examples of low-cost satellite or other technologies that can facilitate logistics and cut response time in crisis settings, and how effective are they?
• How can non-governmental organizations, governments and other actors gain feedback from affected persons to improve humanitarian responses? How effective are online surveys, feedback apps and chatbots? What other novel solutions exist?
*Challenge reformatted and/or slightly reworded from the original submission to increase clarity and coherence.

Emergencies
 
POLIO
Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)
Polio this week as of 10 July 2018 [GPEI]
:: A Disease Outbreak News (DON) notification was issued on 10 July on the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s three concurrent circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) outbreaks.
:: Papua New Guinea prepares for the launch of large-scale immunization campaigns in Morobe, Madang and Eastern Highlands provinces, set to commence next week..

Summary of new cases this week:
Afghanistan:
:: Last week’s advance notification of one wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) case in Nad-e-Ali district, Helmand province, has been confirmed. The case had onset of paralysis on 1 June. This brings the total number of WPV1 cases in 2018 (in Afghanistan) to nine.
:: A sub-national immunization days campaign aiming to reach 6.4 million children under five years of age in 225 high risk districts of 27 provinces, primarily in the southern and eastern parts of the country including Kabul city, has concluded.
:: Two new WPV1 positive environmental samples have been reported: one in Kandahar City, Kandahar province, and one in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province.
Pakistan:
:: Four new WPV1 positive environmental samples have been reported this week: one in Peshawar and one in Kohat, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province (both 26 June), one in Karachi, Sindh province (23 June), and one in Islamabad, Punjab province (24 June).
Somalia:
:: An advance notification has been confirmed of one new cVDPV2 positive contact in Somalia.

DONs
Circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 – Democratic Republic of the Congo
10 July 2018
…WHO risk assessment
WHO assessed the overall public health risk at the national level to be very high and the risk of international spread to be high. This risk is magnified by known population movements between the affected area of Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda, Central African Republic and South Sudan, and the upcoming rainy season which is associated with increased intensity of virus transmission.
The detection of cVDPV2s underscores the importance of maintaining high routine vaccination coverage everywhere to minimize the risk and consequences of any poliovirus circulation. These events also underscore the risk posed by any low-level transmission of the virus. A robust outbreak response is needed to rapidly stop circulation and ensure sufficient vaccination coverage in the affected areas to prevent similar outbreaks in the future. WHO will continue to evaluate the epidemiological situation and outbreak response measures being implemented…

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::::::

WHO Grade 3 Emergencies  [to 14 Jul 2018]
The Syrian Arab Republic
:: Southern Syrian Arab Republic Health Cluster report pdf, 82kb  9 – 12 July 2018
:: WHO delivers over 17 tons of life-saving medicines and medical equipment to the newly accessible city of Douma  7 July 2018

Iraq  – No new announcements identified
Nigeria  – No new announcements identified
South Sudan  – No new announcements identified
Yemen  – No new announcements identified

::::::
 
WHO Grade 2 Emergencies  [to 14 Jul 2018]
[Several emergency pages were not available at inquiry]
Cameroon  – No new announcements identified
Central African Republic  – No new announcements identified.
Democratic Republic of the Congo  – No new announcements identified
Ethiopia  – No new announcements identified.
Libya – No new announcements identified.
Myanmar  – No new announcements identified
Niger  – No new announcements identified.
Ukraine – No new announcements identified.

::::::
::::::
 
UN OCHA – L3 Emergencies
The UN and its humanitarian partners are currently responding to three ‘L3’ emergencies. This is the global humanitarian system’s classification for the response to the most severe, large-scale humanitarian crises. 
Syrian Arab Republic 
:: Syrian Arab Republic: Dar’a, Quneitra, As-Sweida Situation Report No. 2 as of 11 July 2018
Published on 11 Jul 2018
 
Yemen
:: Yemen Humanitarian Update Covering 12 June – 9 July 2018 | Issue 20
Published on 10 Jul 2018

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UN OCHA – Corporate Emergencies
When the USG/ERC declares a Corporate Emergency Response, all OCHA offices, branches and sections provide their full support to response activities both at HQ and in the field.
Ethiopia  – No new announcements identified.
Somalia   – No new announcements identified.

::::::
::::::
 
Editor’s Note:
We will cluster these recent emergencies as below and continue to monitor the WHO webpages for updates and key developments.

EBOLA/EVD  [to 14 Jul 2018]
http://www.who.int/ebola/en/
Ebola virus disease – Democratic Republic of the Congo   6 July 2018
The Ministry of Health and WHO continue to closely monitor the outbreak of Ebola virus disease in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Contact tracing activities concluded on 27 June after the last people with potential exposure to the virus completed their 21-day follow-up without developing symptoms. Over 20 000 visits to contacts have been conducted by the field team throughout the outbreak.
On 12 June, the last confirmed Ebola virus disease patient in Équateur Province was discharged from an Ebola treatment centre, following two negative tests on serial laboratory specimens. Before the outbreak can be declared over, a period of 42 days (two incubation periods) following the last possible exposure to a confirmed case must elapse without any new confirmed cases being detected. Until this milestone is reached, it is critical to maintain all key response pillars, including intensive surveillance to rapidly detect and respond to any resurgence.
In light of progress in the response, WHO has revised the risk assessment for this outbreak…
there remains a risk of resurgence from potentially undetected transmission chains and possible sexual transmission of the virus by male survivors. It is therefore, critical to maintain all key response pillars until the end of the outbreak is declared. Strengthened surveillance mechanisms and a survivor monitoring program are in place to mitigate, rapidly detect and respond to respond to such events. Based on these factors, WHO considers the public health risk to be moderate at the national level.
In the absence of ongoing transmission, the probability of exported cases is low and diminishing, and has been further mitigated by the undertaking of preparedness activities and establishment of contingency plans in neighbouring countries. WHO has assessed the public health risk to be low at the regional and global levels…

The Sentinel

Human Rights Action :: Humanitarian Response :: Health :: Education :: Heritage Stewardship ::
Sustainable Development
__________________________________________________
Week ending 7 July 2018

This weekly digest is intended to aggregate and distill key content from a broad spectrum of practice domains and organization types including key agencies/IGOs, NGOs, governments, academic and research institutions, consortia and collaborations, foundations, and commercial organizations. We also monitor a spectrum of peer-reviewed journals and general media channels. The Sentinel’s geographic scope is global/regional but selected country-level content is included. We recognize that this spectrum/scope yields an indicative and not an exhaustive product. Comments and suggestions should be directed to:

David R. Curry
Editor
GE2P2 Global Foundation – Governance, Evidence, Ethics, Policy, Practice
david.r.curry@ge2p2center.net

PDF: The Sentinel_ period ending 7 July 2018.docx

Contents
:: Week in Review  [See selected posts just below]
:: Key Agency/IGO/Governments Watch – Selected Updates from 30+ entities
:: INGO/Consortia/Joint Initiatives Watch – Media Releases, Major Initiatives, Research:: Foundation/Major Donor Watch -Selected Updates
:: Journal Watch – Key articles and abstracts from 100+ peer-reviewed journals

Governance – Rule of Law: Poland

Rule of Law: Commission launches infringement procedure to protect the independence of the Polish Supreme Court  
Brussels, 2 July 2018

Today, the European Commission has launched an infringement procedure by sending a Letter of Formal Notice to Poland regarding the Polish law on the Supreme Court.

On 3 July, 27 out of 72 Supreme Court judges face the risk of being forced to retire – more than one in every three judges – due to the fact that the new Polish law on the Supreme Court lowers the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 70 to 65. This measure also applies to the First President of the Supreme Court, whose 6-year mandate would be prematurely terminated. According to the law, current judges are given the possibility to declare their will to have their mandate prolonged by the President of the Republic, which can be granted for a period of three years and renewed once. There are no criteria established for the President’s decision and there is no possibility for a judicial review of this decision.

The Commission is of the opinion that these measures undermine the principle of judicial independence, including the irremovability of judges, and thereby Poland fails to fulfil its obligations under Article 19(1) of the Treaty on European Union read in connection with Article 47 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

While the Polish Supreme Court law has already been discussed in the Rule of Law dialogue between the Commission and the Polish authorities, it has not been satisfactorily addressed through this process. The Commission believes that the introduction of a consultation of the National Council for the Judiciary (NCJ) does not constitute an effective safeguard, as argued by the Polish authorities. The NCJ’s opinion is not binding and is based on vague criteria. Moreover, following the reform of 8 December 2017, the NCJ is now composed of judges-members appointed by the Polish Parliament – which is not in line with European standards on judicial independence.

Given the lack of progress through the Rule of Law dialogue, and the imminent implementation of the new retirement regime for Supreme Court judges, the Commission decided to launch this infringement procedure as a matter of urgency. The Polish government will have one month to reply to the Commission’s Letter of Formal Notice. At the same time, the Commission stands ready to continue the ongoing rule of law dialogue with Poland, which remains the Commission’s preferred channel for resolving the systemic threat to the rule of law in Poland.

Background
The rule of law is one of the common values upon which the European Union is founded. It is enshrined in Article 2 of the Treaty on European Union. The European Commission, together with the European Parliament and the Council, is responsible under the Treaties for guaranteeing the respect of the rule of law as a fundamental value of our Union and making sure that EU law, values and principles are respected.

Events in Poland led the European Commission to open a dialogue with the Polish Government in January 2016 under the Rule of Law Framework. The Commission keeps the European Parliament and Council regularly and closely informed.

On 29 July 2017* the Commission launched an infringement procedure on the Polish Law on Ordinary Courts, also on the grounds of its retirement previsions and their impact on the independence of the judiciary. The Commission referred this case to the Court of Justice on 20 December 2017.

Also on 20 December 2017, the Commission invoked the Article 7(1) procedure for the first time, by submitting a Reasoned Proposal for a Decision of the Council on the determination of a clear risk of a serious breach of the rule of law by Poland[1].

At the General Affairs Council hearing on Poland on 26 June, in the context of the Article 7(1) procedure, no indication was given by the Polish authorities of forthcoming measures to address the Commission’s outstanding concerns. The College of Commissioners therefore decided on 27 June 2018 to empower First Vice-President Frans Timmermans to launch this infringement procedure. The Commission stands ready to continue the ongoing rule of law dialogue with Poland, which remains the Commission’s preferred channel for resolving the systemic threat to the rule of law in Poland.

Governance – INGO Merger

Plan International and BØRNEfonden to merge
2 July 2018

Leading Danish development organisation BØRNEfonden has merged with global child rights and humanitarian organisation Plan International to deliver greater impact for millions of vulnerable children and young people in some of the poorest countries in the world.

The merger means that BØRNEfonden’s operations in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Togo will be integrated with Plan International’s current programmes in these four countries.

“By joining forces, we can do much more to champion child rights, equality between girls and boys and the development of strong, resilient communities for the most marginalised children and youth in some of the most disadvantaged regions in the world,” said Anne-Birgitte Albrectsen, CEO of Plan International.

Delivering greater impact for children
Plan International is one of the world’s largest development and humanitarian organisations advancing children’s rights and equality for girls. The organisation is active in more than 70 countries and has an annual turnover of more than €850 million.

Plan International has worked in West Africa for over 40 years with major programmes in education, health, household economic security, water and sanitation, and child rights promotion. The organisation has a collective annual budget of over €60 million in Benin, Burkina Faso, Mali and Togo with over 450 staff.

BØRNEfonden has been working in these four countries for over four decades, focusing on children’s health and education, as well as employability, entrepreneurship and empowerment of youth. Every year BØRNEfonden benefits three million people, enabling them to build a better future. BØRNEfonden’s merger will add over 45,000 sponsored children and 471 staff to Plan International’s operations…

Health – Quality Health Services

Delivering quality health services: A global imperative for universal health coverage
WHO – OECD – World Bank
July 2018 :: 100 pages
ISBN: 978-92-4-151390-6
PDF: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/272465/9789241513906-eng.pdf?ua=1

Overview
This document describes the essential role of quality in the delivery of health care services. As nations commit to achieving universal health coverage by 2030, there is a growing acknowledgement that optimal health care cannot be delivered by simply ensuring coexistence of infrastructure, medical supplies and health care providers. Improvement in health care delivery requires a deliberate focus on quality of health services, which involves providing effective, safe, people-centred care that is timely, equitable, integrated and efficient. Quality of care is the degree to which health services for individuals and populations increase the likelihood of desired health outcomes and are consistent with current professional knowledge.

News Release
Low quality healthcare is increasing the burden of illness and health costs globally
5 July 2018
Poor quality health services are holding back progress on improving health in countries at all income levels, according to a new joint report by the OECD, World Health Organization (WHO) and the World Bank.

Today, inaccurate diagnosis, medication errors, inappropriate or unnecessary treatment, inadequate or unsafe clinical facilities or practices, or providers who lack adequate training and expertise prevail in all countries.

The situation is worst in low and middle-income countries where 10 percent of hospitalized patients can expect to acquire an infection during their stay, as compared to seven percent in high income countries. This is despite hospital acquired infections being easily avoided through better hygiene, improved infection control practices and appropriate use of antimicrobials.. At the same time, one in ten patients is harmed during medical treatment in high income countries.

These are just some of the highlights from Delivering Quality Health Services – a Global Imperative for Universal Health Coverage. The report also highlights that sickness associated with poor quality health care imposes additional expenditure on families and health systems…

Other key findings in the report paint a picture of quality issues in healthcare around the world:

:: Health care workers in seven low- and middle-income African countries were only able to make accurate diagnoses one third to three quarters of the time, and clinical guidelines for common conditions were followed less than 45 percent of the time on average.

:: Research in eight high-mortality countries in the Caribbean and Africa found that effective, quality maternal and child health services are far less prevalent than suggested by just looking at access to services. For example, just 28 percent of antenatal care, 26 percent of family planning services and 21 percent of sick-child care across these countries qualified as ‘effective.’

:: Around 15 percent of hospital expenditure in high-income countries is due to mistakes in care or patients being infected while in hospitals.

Heritage Stewardship – UN Biodiversity Lab

UN Biodiversity Lab launched to revolutionize biodiversity planning and reporting

UNDP, UN Environment, and the CBD Secretariat launch a free, open-source platform to provide policy makers with access to world-class data for national action
Posted on July 5, 2018
Montreal, Canada, July 5 – The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the United Nations Environment (UN Environment), and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, launched the UN Biodiversity Lab –  an interactive mapping platform designed to solve biodiversity conservation and development challenges. With core funding from the Global Environment Facility and powered by MapX, the UN Biodiversity Lab brings together spatial data from the UN Environment World Conservation Monitoring Centre, the Global Resource    Information Database (GRID-Geneva), NASA, UN agencies, and premier research institutions.

Currently, many countries lack access to geospatial data due to limitations in data availability and technical capacity. The UN Biodiversity Lab provides spatial data through a free, cloud-based tool to support Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in reporting on their achievements and to inform their conservation decision making. National policymakers and planners will be able to upload and utilize existing national-level data in their analyses…

The importance of enhancing access to big data for sustainable development is highlighted by the Nature for Development Declaration on Spatial Data, which was opened for public endorsement at the launch event. To date, 20 institutions have endorsed the Declaration. A large number of countries, UN Agencies, NGOs, academic institutions, and indigenous peoples organizations are expected to endorse…

Heritage Stewardship – World Heritage

World Heritage Committee has inscribed a total of 19 sites on World Heritage List
04 July 2018
The World Heritage Committee, meeting in Manama since 24 June under the chair of Shaikha Haya Bint Rashed al-Khalifa of Bahrain, ended today. The next session çof the World Heritage Committee will be in Baku, Azerbaijan.

During the session, the Committee inscribed 19 sites on the World Heritage List (13 cultural sites, three natural and three mixed sites, i.e. both natural and cultural). It also approved the extension of one natural site. The World Heritage List now numbers 1092 sites in 167 countries.

Newly inscribed cultural sites:
Aasivissuit – Nipisat. Inuit Hunting Ground between Ice and Sea (Denmark)
Al-Ahsa Oasis, an evolving Cultural Landscape (Saudi Arabia)
Ancient City of Qalhat (Oman)
Archaeological Border complex of Hedeby and the Danevirke (Germany)
Caliphate City of Medina Azahara (Spain)
Göbekli Tepe (Turkey)
Hidden Christian Sites in the Nagasaki Region (Japan)
Ivrea, industrial city of the 20th century (Italy)
Naumburg Cathedral (Germany)
Sansa, Buddhist Mountain Monasteries in Korea (Republic of Korea)
Sassanid Archaeological Landscape of Fars Region (Islamic Republic of Iran)
Thimlich Ohinga Archaeological Site (Kenya)
Victorian Gothic and Art Deco Ensembles of Mumbai (India)

Natural sites:
Barberton Makhonjwa Mountains (South Africa)
Chaine des Puys – Limagne fault tectonic arena (France)
Fanjingshan (China)

Mixed sites:
Chiribiquete National Park – “The Maloca of the Jaguar” (Colombia)
Pimachiowin Aki (Canada)
Tehuacán-Cuicatlán Valley: originary habitat of Mesoamerica (Mexico)

Extension:
Bikin River Valley (Russian Federation)

Emergencies

 
POLIO
Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)
Polio this week as of 03 July 2018 [GPEI]
:: Tens of thousands of Rotarians met last week in Toronto, Canada, for the annual Rotary International Convention. Polio eradication was again front and centre at this year’s event. Addressing the Convention, WHO Director-General Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus thanked Rotarians for their leadership in bringing the world to the brink of being polio-free, and asked for a doubling of efforts to cross the finish line once and for all.
:: On the convention’s final day, Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, was presented with Rotary’s Polio Eradication Champion Award in recognition of his leadership and Canada’s contributions to polio eradication.
:: Read about the vaccination of refugees and internally displaced people in the Lake Chad basin.

Summary of new cases this week:
Afghanistan: An advance notification has been received of one new wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) case in Afghanistan.
Nigeria: One circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 (cVDPV2) positive environmental sample has been reported from Nigeria.
Pakistan: Three new WPV1 positive environmental samples have been reported from Pakistan.
Somalia: An advance notification has been received of one new cVDPV2 positive contact in Somalia. S

Alarming polio outbreak spreads in Congo, threatening global eradication efforts
Science | 2 July 2018  By Leslie Roberts
Overshadowed by the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), another frightening virus is on the loose in that vast, chaotic country: polio. Public health experts have worked for months to stamp out the virus, but it keeps spreading. It has already paralyzed 29 children, and on 21 June a case was reported on the border with Uganda, far outside the known outbreak zone, heightening fears that the virus will sweep across Africa. The DRC is “absolutely” the most worrisome polio outbreak today, says Michel Zaffran, who heads the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva, Switzerland.
The outbreak also underscores the latest complication on the bumpy road toward polio eradication. It is caused not by the wild virus hanging on by a thread in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and perhaps Nigeria, but by a rare mutant derived from the weakened live virus in the oral polio vaccine (OPV), which has regained its neurovirulence and the ability to spread. As OPV campaigns have driven the wild virus to near-extinction, these circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses (cVDPVs) have emerged as the greatest threat to polio eradication. If the outbreaks are not stopped quickly, polio scientists warn, they could spiral out of control, setting eradication efforts back years.
“There is an urgency” to stopping these vaccine-derived outbreaks, says epidemiologist Nicholas Grassly of Imperial College London. “It is so much more important than controlling the wild virus.”…

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WHO Grade 3 Emergencies  [to 7 Jul 2018]
The Syrian Arab Republic
:: Southern Syrian Arab Republic Health Cluster report pdf, 130kb  Issue 2, 29 June-1 July 2018

Yemen 
:: WHO responds to health needs in Al-Hudaydah amid escalating conflict 28 June 2018

Iraq  – No new announcements identified
Nigeria  – No new announcements identified
South Sudan  – No new announcements identified

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WHO Grade 2 Emergencies  [to 7 Jul 2018]
[Several emergency pages were not available at inquiry]
Cameroon  – No new announcements identified
Central African Republic  – No new announcements identified.
Democratic Republic of the Congo  – No new announcements identified
Ethiopia  – No new announcements identified.
Libya – No new announcements identified.
Myanmar  – No new announcements identified
Niger  – No new announcements identified.
Ukraine – No new announcements identified.

::::::
::::::
 
UN OCHA – L3 Emergencies
The UN and its humanitarian partners are currently responding to three ‘L3’ emergencies. This is the global humanitarian system’s classification for the response to the most severe, large-scale humanitarian crises. 
Syrian Arab Republic 
:: Syrian Arab Republic: Dar’a, Quneitra, As-Sweida Situation Report No. 1 as of 4 July 2018
…Sustained hostilities in south-west Syria since 17 June and rapid advances by the Government of Syria (GoS) army have led to the displacement of an estimated 285,000 – 325,000 individuals as of 4 July. Of those, up to 189,000 IDPs have moved to areas in close proximity to the Golan Heights and up to 59,000 individuals were displaced to areas near the Al-Nasib border crossing with Jordan…
 
Yemen
:: Yemen: Al Hudaydah Update Situation Report No. 7 – Reporting period: 27 June – 4 July 2018

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UN OCHA – Corporate Emergencies
When the USG/ERC declares a Corporate Emergency Response, all OCHA offices, branches and sections provide their full support to response activities both at HQ and in the field.
Ethiopia 
:: Ethiopia Humanitarian Bulletin Issue 56 | 18 June – 1 July 2018

Somalia   
:: Humanitarian Bulletin Somalia, 2 June – 5 July 2018

The Sentinel

Human Rights Action :: Humanitarian Response :: Health :: Education :: Heritage Stewardship ::
Sustainable Development
__________________________________________________
Week ending 30 June 2018

This weekly digest is intended to aggregate and distill key content from a broad spectrum of practice domains and organization types including key agencies/IGOs, NGOs, governments, academic and research institutions, consortia and collaborations, foundations, and commercial organizations. We also monitor a spectrum of peer-reviewed journals and general media channels. The Sentinel’s geographic scope is global/regional but selected country-level content is included. We recognize that this spectrum/scope yields an indicative and not an exhaustive product. Comments and suggestions should be directed to:

David R. Curry
Editor
GE2P2 Global Foundation – Governance, Evidence, Ethics, Policy, Practice
david.r.curry@ge2p2center.net

PDF: The Sentinel_ period ending 30 Jun 2018

Contents
:: Week in Review  [See selected posts just below]
:: Key Agency/IGO/Governments Watch – Selected Updates from 30+ entities
:: INGO/Consortia/Joint Initiatives Watch – Media Releases, Major Initiatives, Research:: Foundation/Major Donor Watch -Selected Updates
:: Journal Watch – Key articles and abstracts from 100+ peer-reviewed journals

Human Rights – Children and Armed Conflict

Annual Report: Children Faced with Unspeakable Violence in Conflict as Number of Grave Violations Increased in 2017
Press Release
New York, 27 June 2018 – The number of children affected by armed conflict and the severity of grave violations affecting them increased in the past year, concludes the annual report of the Secretary-General on children and armed conflict released today.

“The report details the unspeakable violence children have been faced with, and shows how in too many conflict situations, parties to conflict have an utter disregard for any measures that could contribute to shielding the most vulnerable from the impact of war,” the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Ms. Virginia Gamba, declared.

Over 21,000 grave violations of children’s rights have been verified by the United Nations from January to December 2017, an unacceptable increase from previous years (15,500 in 2016).

The crises unfolding in the Central African Republic (CAR), the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Myanmar, South Sudan, Syria and Yemen brought about serious increases in verified grave violations. In Syria, children have suffered the highest number of verified violations ever recorded in the country. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, crises in the Kasais led to an eightfold increase of attacks on schools and hospitals (515). In a despicable trend, almost half of the 881 verified child casualties in Nigeria resulted from suicide attacks, including the use of children as human bombs.

Over 10,000 children were killed or maimed in 2017 with numbers growing substantially in Iraq and Myanmar, while remaining unacceptably high in Afghanistan and Syria.

“When your own house or your school can be attacked without qualms, when traditional safe-havens become targets, how can boys and girls escape the brutality of war?,” Virginia Gamba, declared. “This shows a blatant disregard for international law by parties to conflict, making civilians, especially children, increasingly vulnerable to violence, use and abuse,” she added…

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Children and Armed Conflict (CAAC) Report
Report of the Secretary General
A/72/865–S/2018/465
16 May 2018 :: 42 pages
[Excerpt]
IV. Recommendations
253. I am deeply concerned by the scale and severity of grave violations against children outlined in the present report, including high levels of killing and maiming, recruitment and use, sexual violence and abductions, and call upon all parties to immediately end and take all necessary measures to prevent such grave violations, including through ensuring accountability for perpetrators.

254. I urge Member States, whether acting alone or as part of coalitions or international forces, to ensure that their responses to all threats to peace and security are conducted in full compliance with international law. Children formerly associated with armed forces or groups should be seen primarily as victims and detention should only be used as a last resort, for the shortest period of time, and alternatives to detention should be prioritized whenever possible.

255. I call upon Member States to continue supporting the implementation of action plans and other commitments aimed at strengthening the protection of children in armed conflict, including by facilitating the engagement of the United Nations with armed groups.

256. In view of the continuing high levels of cross-border recruitment and the subsequent challenges in terms of the repatriation and reintegration of children separated from armed forces or groups, I call upon Member States and regional and subregional organizations to engage closely with the United Nations in order to ensure a coordinated response based on international law and keeping in mind the best interest of the child.

257. I encourage Member States, as well as regional and subregional organizations, to further strengthen dedicated child protection capacities and to engage with the United Nations to prioritize the development of tools to forestall grave violations, including through the adoption of prevention plans aimed at systematizing preventive measures.

258. I call upon the Security Council to continue to support the children and armed conflict agenda by including provisions for the protection of children in all relevant mandates of United Nations peace operations and to request adequate child protection capacity in order to mainstream child protection, conduct dialogue on action plans, release and reintegrate children and further strengthen monitoring and reporting.

259. I enjoin the donor community to engage in a discussion to address the funding gaps for the reintegration of children recruited and used and to support the establishment of a multi-year funding mechanism, thereby allowing child protection actors to react swiftly to the release of children and put in place long-term viable alternatives to military life, notably by placing a specific focus on girls, on psychosocial support and on education programmes and vocational training.

260. I welcome all steps taken to ensure full compliance with international humanitarian law, human rights law and refugee law, and call upon Member States to further strengthen the protection of children in armed conflict, including through ratification of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict as well as the endorsement and implementation of the Paris Commitments to protect children from unlawful recruitment or use by armed forces or groups, the Principles and Guidelines on Children Associated with Armed Forces or Armed Groups (Paris Principles) and the Safe Schools Declaration.

Humanitarian Response – “Faith-Sensitive” Guidance

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A Faith-Sensitive Approach in Humanitarian Response: Guidance on Mental Health and Psychosocial Programming
The Lutheran World Federation and Islamic Relief Worldwide (2018) :: 88 pages
Project Advisory Group Members: Church of Sweden, HIAS, IFRC Reference Centre for Psychosocial Support, UNHCR, World Vision, independent advisors
Project field-testing agencies: Christian Aid Nigeria, HIAS Kenya, HIAS Chad, IR Jordan, IR Kenya, IR Lebanon, IR Nepal, LWF Kenya, LWF Nepal, LWF Jordan
ISBN: 978-2-940459-82-7
Introduction
Humanitarian agencies have become increasingly aware of the importance of religion in the lives of those they seek to assist and of the potential value of more effective engagement with local faith actors in humanitarian settings. Equally, however, there is concern about how to address these issues in a way that does not threaten humanitarian principles of impartiality and neutrality, nor risk heightening any existing religious tensions.

This guidance has been developed to provide practical support to those involved in planning humanitarian programming who seek to be more sensitive to the faith perspectives and resources of the communities within which they are working. It focuses particularly on the programming area of mental health and psychosocial support (MHPSS), but in a manner that seeks to provide pointers for more faith-sensitive humanitarian programming overall.

The guidance is closely aligned with the existing IASC Guidelines on Mental Health and Psychosocial Support in Emergency Settings (2007). The IASC MHPSS Guidelines are a familiar framework for most global humanitarian actors. By developing faith-sensitive guidance within this structure, we aim to provide for a consistent approach of value to both faith-based and non-faith-based actors. The focus throughout is on the faith and resources of communities impacted by humanitarian emergencies, not on the faith tradition (or not) of humanitarian providers.

Using the structure of the IASC MHPSS Guidelines also ensures a suitably broad perspective on how faith impacts on wellbeing and mechanisms of support in humanitarian settings – at the level of organisations, communities, families and individuals. The guidance relates both to the spiritual nurture of individuals, families and communities and to the engagement of local faith communities and religious leaders during humanitarian emergencies. The guidance has been developed at a time when there is increasing commitment to the localisation of humanitarian response. While there is consideration given to how local faith actors can be helpful in delivery of international agency programmes, there is greater emphasis on how to establish partnerships such that local capacities and perspectives genuinely shape programming.

The guidance has been drafted with a view to strengthening psychosocial support by securing more effective engagement with the faith resources of individuals and communities. However, while religion can be a powerful source of coping and resilience, it may also be used to promote harmful practices or undermine humanitarian programming efforts. The guidance therefore seeks to guide humanitarian actors in weighing strategies of local faith engagement in a manner fully mindful of the “do no harm” imperative. This invariably will involve developing a deeper contextual understanding of the role of religion and religious actors in a humanitarian setting.

Human Rights – Sexual and Reproductive Health

Featured Journal Content

The Lancet
Jun 30, 2018 Volume 391 Number 10140 p2575-2692
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/issue/current

The Lancet Commissions
Accelerate progress—sexual and reproductive health and rights for all: report of the Guttmacher–Lancet Commission
Ann M Starrs, Alex C Ezeh, Gary Barker, Alaka Basu, Jane T Bertrand, Robert Blum, Awa M Coll-Seck, Anand Grover, Laura Laski, Monica Roa, Zeba A Sathar, Lale Say, Gamal I Serour, Susheela Singh, Karin Stenberg, Marleen Temmerman, Ann Biddlecom, Anna Popinchalk, Cynthia Summers, Lori S Ashford

Key messages
:: Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are essential for sustainable development because of their links to gender equality and women’s wellbeing, their impact on maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health, and their roles in shaping future economic development and environmental sustainability.
:: Everyone has a right to make decisions that govern their bodies, free of stigma, discrimination, and coercion. These decisions include those related to sexuality, reproduction, and the use of sexual and reproductive health services.
:: SRHR information and services should be accessible and affordable to all individuals who need them regardless of their age, marital status, socioeconomic status, race or ethnicity, sexual orientation, or gender identity.
:: The necessary investments in SRHR per capita are modest and are affordable for most low-income and middle-income countries. Less-developed countries will face funding gaps, however, and will continue to need external assistance.
:: Countries should incorporate the essential services defined in this report into universal health coverage, paying special attention to the poorest and most vulnerable people.
:: Countries must also take actions beyond the health sector to change social norms, laws, and policies to uphold human rights. The most crucial reforms are those that promote gender equality and give women greater control over their bodies and lives.

Executive summary
Sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) are fundamental to people’s health and survival, to economic development, and to the wellbeing of humanity. Several decades of research have shown—and continue to show—the profound and measurable benefits of investment in sexual and reproductive health. Through international agreements, governments have committed to such investment. Yet progress has been stymied because of weak political commitment, inadequate resources, persistent discrimination against women and girls, and an unwillingness to address issues related to sexuality openly and comprehensively.

Health and development initiatives, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the movement toward universal health coverage, typically focus on particular components of SRHR: contraception, maternal and newborn health, and HIV/AIDS. Countries around the world have made remarkable gains in these areas over the past few decades, but the gains have been inequitable among and within countries, and services have often fallen short in coverage and quality. Moreover, in much of the world, people have insufficient access to a full set of sexual and reproductive health services, and their sexual and reproductive rights are not respected or protected. Acceleration of progress therefore requires adoption of a more holistic view of SRHR and tackling of neglected issues, such as adolescent sexuality, gender-based violence, abortion, and diversity in sexual orientations and gender identities.

Progress in SRHR requires confrontation of the barriers embedded in laws, policies, the economy, and in social norms and values—especially gender inequality—that prevent people from achieving sexual and reproductive health. Improvement of people’s wellbeing depends on individuals’ being able to make decisions about their own sexual and reproductive lives and respecting the decisions of others. In other words, achieving sexual and reproductive health rests on realising sexual and reproductive rights, many of which are often overlooked—eg, the right to control one’s own body, define one’s sexuality, choose one’s partner, and receive confidential, respectful, and high-quality services.

The evidence presented in this report reveals the scope of the unfinished SRHR agenda. Each year in developing regions, more than 30 million women do not give birth in a health facility, more than 45 million have inadequate or no antenatal care, and more than 200 million women want to avoid pregnancy but are not using modern contraception. Each year worldwide, 25 million unsafe abortions take place, more than 350 million men and women need treatment for one of the four curable sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and nearly 2 million people become newly infected with HIV. Additionally, at some point in their lives nearly one in three women experience intimate partner violence or non-partner sexual violence. Ultimately, almost all 4·3 billion people of reproductive age worldwide will have inadequate sexual and reproductive health services over the course of their lives.

Other sexual and reproductive health conditions remain less well known but are also potentially devastating for individuals and families. Between 49 million and 180 million couples worldwide might be affected by infertility, for which services are mainly available only to the wealthy. An estimated 266 000 women die annually from cervical cancer even though it is almost entirely preventable. Men also suffer from conditions, such as STIs and prostate cancer, that go undetected and untreated because of social stigma and norms about masculinity that discourage them from seeking health care.

This report proposes a comprehensive and integrated definition of SRHR and recommends an essential package of SRHR services and information that should be universally available. The package is consistent with, but broader than, the sexual and reproductive health targets of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Our recommended package includes the commonly recognised components of sexual and reproductive health—ie, contraceptive services, maternal and newborn care, and prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS. Additionally, the package includes less commonly provided components: care for STIs other than HIV; comprehensive sexuality education; safe abortion care; prevention, detection, and counselling for gender-based violence; prevention, detection, and treatment of infertility and cervical cancer; and counselling and care for sexual health and wellbeing. Recognising that many countries are not prepared to provide the full spectrum of services, we recommend that governments commit to achieving universal access to SRHR and to making continual and steady progress, regardless of their starting point.

Our assessment of the costs of the major components of sexual and reproductive health services for which cost data are available shows that meeting all needs for these services would be affordable for most countries. The cost of meeting all women’s needs for contraceptive, maternal, and newborn care is estimated to be on average US$9 per capita annually in developing regions. The investments would also yield enormous returns; evidence shows that access to sexual and reproductive health services saves lives, improves health and wellbeing, promotes gender equality, increases productivity and household income, and has multigenerational benefits by improving children’s health and wellbeing. These benefits pay dividends over many years and make it easier to achieve other development goals.

The means and knowledge—in the form of global guidelines, protocols, technology, and evidence of best practices—are available to ensure that all people receive the confidential, respectful, and high-quality sexual and reproductive health services they need. Successful interventions have been piloted in many low-income and middle-income countries, some of which are highlighted in this report, but many effective approaches have not been implemented on a wide scale. Thus, civil society groups and others committed to advancing SRHR must work across sectors, and they must hold governments accountable to their commitments not only to improve health but also to uphold human rights.

Heritage Stewardship

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A Global Offer to Reduce Deforestation: $5 Billion a Year for 20 Years
Center for Global Development
Michele de Nevers
June 27, 2018
When it comes to measuring development impacts, nothing beats forests. With ever-improving satellite monitoring technology, measuring global forest cover is each year easier, cheaper, and more accurate. Which means that—whatever you want to call it (pay for performance, results-based aid)—rewarding tropical forest countries for preserving their forests, and for their climate and development benefits, is becoming easier and more accurate.

But until now a large-scale, simple program to reward tropical forest countries for their performance, based on satellite data like the Forest Conservation Performance Rating, has not been established. Why?

One of the primary reasons: not enough money. Most results-based payments to reward reduced deforestation come from aid money, official development assistance (ODA). But there are dozens of competing high priority uses for ODA. And when ODA funds are used for rewards payments, donors are tempted to treat results programs like donor assistance and attach conditions to how the results are achieved and how the reward payments are utilized, or to “aidify” the results-based payment program.

But what if there was a huge endowment or sovereign wealth fund whose investment returns could be used to pay tropical forest countries for their results in reducing deforestation?

That is the thinking behind a new CGD financing scheme—the Tropical Forest Finance Facility. In 2014 Ken Lay, the former Treasurer and VP of the World Bank, came to CGD with an idea to raise substantial funding for a forest performance payments system. With generous assistance from the Rockefeller Foundation and from Norwegian Norad, a CGD-based team fleshed out the idea and consulted with finance, development, climate and forest experts in more than a dozen forest and donor countries. These ideas are now set out in a series of CGD policy and working papers.

What is the new idea?
The basic idea is simple but novel: the Tropical Forest Finance Facility (TFFF) would create a pay-for-performance financing mechanism that would operate like an endowment or multilateral sovereign wealth fund; the net returns on the investment of the TFFF’s capital would be awarded to tropical forest countries based on measured results in protecting their natural forests. Rather than competing for scarce donor funding, the TFFF would be capitalized by low-cost loans. Once the capital is raised, investments would be managed by a team of professional asset management experts and performance assessment would be overseen by forest experts.

To capitalize the TFFF, contributions would not come from ODA or other government budgets. Rather, investor countries, philanthropies, or private investors would provide loans or draw on endowments or reserve funds to capitalize the TFFF. We propose an initial target size of $100 billion for the TFFF.

The low-cost funds used to capitalize the TFFF would be invested over a long-time horizon in a diversified, endowment-like portfolio of relatively riskier assets with higher expected returns, like the portfolios of major universities, endowments, and foundations. Investors would be paid debt service on their loans annually from the fund’s returns and would redeem their initial capital when the fund is unwound after 20 years

The returns on the fund, after paying costs, would accrue to tropical forest countries that successfully protect their forest resources. Based on historic returns, a fund of $100 billion could generate approximately $5 billion a year in potential performance awards—a significant incentive even for large forest countries.

Success in maintaining tropical forests would be assessed as simply as possible, primarily through breakthrough technology in annual satellite monitoring, and would be transparent, public, and independently verified. Performance would be assessed based on a combination of (1) a country’s performance in maintaining forests or reducing deforestation against a benchmark, and (2) its share of global tropical forests. The TFFF’s governance would be modeled on the governance of sovereign wealth funds and not on international climate funds such as the Green Climate Fund or the Climate Investment funds.

Why forests?
Tropical forests contribute to more than 10 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs.) As a recent CGD book Why Forests? Why Now? explains, forests provide incomes to rural communities, protect watersheds, capture and store carbon from the atmosphere, and increase resilience to extreme weather events.

Deforestation in many developing countries has been increasing, the result of seemingly compelling economic incentives—at least for those controlling land. A significant incentive to take the difficult steps necessary to end deforestation is needed. The idea of results-based payments to protect forests is enshrined in the 2015 UNFCCC Paris Agreement, which lays out the parameters for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD+.
Forests lend themselves to a pay-for-performance funding approach because recent advances in satellite monitoring technology make the measurement of results—maintaining natural forests or reducing deforestation against a benchmark—relatively straightforward, transparent, and consistent.

We are pleased that the World Bank is exploring the possibility to take the TFFF ideas forward. This is similar to the process that brought the idea of an Advanced Market Commitment, nurtured at CGD in this 2005 report, from endorsement by the G7 summit in L’Aquila, Abruzzo, Italy, to implementation by the World Bank, eventually leading to the production and distribution of the pneumococcal vaccine that saved millions of children’s lives in developing countries.

The idea is bigger than forests
The TFFF funding model could be attractive in other sectors and to a wider group of investors, such as impact investors or philanthropic foundations, many of whom are looking to link their endowment investments to their broader mission. These kinds of organizations could provide extremely low-cost loans from their sizeable endowments.

The TFFF model is an interesting new financing mechanism. If it works, it could make possible a new approach to mobilizing international financing to conserve forests, and perhaps eventually to support the SDGs and other global public goods…

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Roadmap to Financing Deforestation-Free Commodities
World Economic Forum- TFA2020
White paper – Jun 2018 :: 30 pages
PDF: https://www.tfa2020.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/The-Roadmap-to-Financing-Deforestation-Free-Commodities.pdf
The World Economic Forum is pleased to acknowledge and thank PwC for the development of this White Paper and convening the Expert Working Group, without whom the work on The Roadmap to Financing Deforestation-Free Commodities would not have been possible.

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Press Release
Financial Institutions Pressed to Support Businesses Tackling Deforestation as Governments Worldwide Tighten Land-Use Policies
28 Jun 2018
· Banks, lenders and investors in a $941 billion industry risk exposure from commodities linked to illegal or unsustainable deforestation – a major cause of climate change
· New report urges financial institutions to support efforts to remove deforestation from value chains as business and governments tighten policies on agriculture and land-use
· The Roadmap to Financing Deforestation-Free Commodities report shows how financial institutions must adapt to a changing regulatory and market landscape post-Paris Agreement

Oslo, Norway, 28 June 2018 – Financial institutions must back companies that are removing unsustainable and illegal deforestation from their value chains or risk saddling themselves with unprofitable clients and stranded assets, a new report launched at the Oslo Tropical Forest Forum warns.

The Tropical Forest Alliance (TFA 2020), a partnership hosted by the World Economic Forum, says that banks, lenders and investors must support efforts by agriculture producers, traders and consumer-facing companies to end deforestation, a major cause of climate change.

Its new report, Roadmap to Financing Deforestation-Free Commodities, says that the economics of this industry is worth over $941 billion a year and could fundamentally change as businesses and governments ramp up their ambitions after the Paris Agreement on climate change.
Governments are deploying more stringent land-use regulations to end deforestation in countries such as Brazil and Indonesia. Businesses – particularly large consumer brands or those facing shareholder pressure – are also tightening policies in the supply chains of beef, soy, paper and pulp and palm oil, the four commodities that are behind half of all agricultural-driven land clearance and deforestation.

“These risks are largely unknown and unmanaged by financial institutions,” said Marco Albani, Director of the TFA 2020. “But they could radically change an unsustainable means of production through practices such as disclosure policies on deforestation in their investment portfolios, improved data gathering and monitoring techniques and improved environmental, social and governance structures.”

The TFA 2020, hosted by the World Economic Forum, is working with more than 60 global businesses – alongside over 80 governments, international organizations, civil society and non-governmental organizations – to support their efforts to stop deforestation in their supply chains…

Emergencies
 
POLIO
Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC)
Polio this week as of 26 June 2018 [GPEI]
:: The Republic of Korea becomes the first donor to support polio outbreak response in the Horn of Africa.
 
Summary of newly-reported viruses this week:
DRC : Three cVDPV cases type 2
Papua New Guinea: One  cVDPV case type 1
Somalia: One cVDPV case combining type 2 and type 3 and, two cVDPV cases type 3

Papua New Guinea confirms poliovirus outbreak, launches response
PORT MORESBY, 25 June 2018 – The National Department of Health of Papua New Guinea and the World Health Organization (WHO) today confirmed that the strain of poliovirus first detected in a child from Morobe Province in April is now circulating in the same community.
The one confirmed case is a 6-year-old boy with lower limb weakness, first detected on 28 April 2018. A vaccine-derived poliovirus type 1 (VDPV1) had been isolated as the cause of the paralysis on 21 May 2018.
On 22 June 2018, the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that the same virus was also isolated from stool specimens of two healthy children from the same community. This means that the virus is circulating in the community—representing an outbreak of the virus.
“We are deeply concerned about this polio case in Papua New Guinea, and the fact that the virus is circulating,” said Pascoe Kase, Secretary of the National Department of Health (NDOH). “Our immediate priority is to respond and prevent more children from being infected.”…
Public health response
Outbreak response activities are ongoing in Morobe Province. Experts from the NDOH, Papua New Guinea’s Central Public Health Laboratory, Provincial Health Authorities, UNICEF and WHO have conducted field missions to undertake clinical investigation, house-to-house surveys, sample collection and contact tracing.
The team also collected stool specimens from family members of the patient and from the community. A “mop up” immunization campaign was done in the community targeting children under 15 years old. To date, 845 children from the Lufa Mountain Settlement have been vaccinated…

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WHO Grade 3 Emergencies  [to 30 Jun 2018]
The Syrian Arab Republic
:: Syria crisis – SOUTHERN SYRIA UPDATE  Issue 1 – 26-28 June 2018
 
Iraq  – No new announcements identified
Nigeria  – No new announcements identified
South Sudan  – Webpage not responding at inquiry
Yemen  – No new announcements identified

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WHO Grade 2 Emergencies  [to 30 Jun 2018]
[Several emergency pages were not available at inquiry]
Myanmar 
:: Additional workforce added to Cox’s Bazar hospital to strengthen Rohingya refugee response
Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, 21 June 2018: To strengthen health services for Rohingya refugees and their host communities in Cox’s Bazar, additional health workforce has been added to the district hospital here, the only facility providing referral services to nearly 1.3 million vulnerable population at increased risk of diseases in the ongoing rainy season.
“The additional staff will help augment service delivery at the hospital as we seek to enhance capacities to treat acute watery diarrhoea cases, in addition to trauma and obstetric care,” said Dr Bardan Jung Rana, WHO Representative to Bangladesh.
With funding from the King Salman Humanitarian Aid and Relief Centre (KSrelief), 86 additional staff including 25 medical officers and 40 nurses, have been hired by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare for the Sadar district hospital…

Cameroon  – No new announcements identified
Central African Republic  – No new announcements identified.
Democratic Republic of the Congo  – No new announcements identified
Ethiopia  – No new announcements identified.
Libya – No new announcements identified.
Niger  – No new announcements identified.
Ukraine – No new announcements identified.

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UN OCHA – L3 Emergencies
The UN and its humanitarian partners are currently responding to three ‘L3’ emergencies. This is the global humanitarian system’s classification for the response to the most severe, large-scale humanitarian crises. 
Yemen
:: Yemen: Al Hudaydah Update Situation Report No. 6, 27 June 2018

Syrian Arab Republic  – No new announcements identified.

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UN OCHA – Corporate Emergencies
When the USG/ERC declares a Corporate Emergency Response, all OCHA offices, branches and sections provide their full support to response activities both at HQ and in the field.
Ethiopia  – No new announcements identified.
Somalia   – No new announcements identified.

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Editor’s Note:
We will cluster these recent emergencies as below and continue to monitor the WHO webpages for updates and key developments.

EBOLA/EVD  [to 30 Jun 2018]
http://www.who.int/ebola/en/
Ebola situation reports: Democratic Republic of the Congo
Case numbers can fluctuate on a daily basis due to many factors including enhanced surveillance, local laboratory capacity, possible communication delays caused by the challenge of accessing remote locations and constant reclassification of cases. Suspected cases with conclusively negative laboratory tests are systematically removed from the case counts.
Latest numbers as of 28 June 2018
:: Confirmed cases: 38
:: Probable cases: 15
:: Suspect cases: 2
:: Total cases: 55 (including 29 deaths)
2018 Ebola outbreak situation reports
Ebola Outbreak in DRC: 26 June 2018

The Sentinel

Human Rights Action :: Humanitarian Response :: Health :: Education :: Heritage Stewardship ::
Sustainable Development
__________________________________________________
Week ending 23 June 2018

This weekly digest is intended to aggregate and distill key content from a broad spectrum of practice domains and organization types including key agencies/IGOs, NGOs, governments, academic and research institutions, consortia and collaborations, foundations, and commercial organizations. We also monitor a spectrum of peer-reviewed journals and general media channels. The Sentinel’s geographic scope is global/regional but selected country-level content is included. We recognize that this spectrum/scope yields an indicative and not an exhaustive product. Comments and suggestions should be directed to:

David R. Curry
Editor
GE2P2 Global Foundation – Governance, Evidence, Ethics, Policy, Practice
david.r.curry@ge2p2center.net

PDF: The Sentinel_ period ending 23 Jun 2018

Contents
:: Week in Review  [See selected posts just below]
:: Key Agency/IGO/Governments Watch – Selected Updates from 30+ entities
:: INGO/Consortia/Joint Initiatives Watch – Media Releases, Major Initiatives, Research:: Foundation/Major Donor Watch -Selected Updates
:: Journal Watch – Key articles and abstracts from 100+ peer-reviewed journals