Climate change, nukes, and speeches galore. What to expect when Obama, Hu, Qaddafi, and 120 other world leaders descend on New York. From Foreign Policy magazine.
Ken Bacon passed away this week. We honor his memory by reposting this item he originally wrote for us in May 2009. Please visit his memorial page on the website of Refugees International
When Refugees International visited the Nyabiheke camp for Congolese refugees in Rwanda, we asked a doctor there to describe the camp's biggest health problem and her most urgent need. Without hesitation, Dr. Ann Kao said the biggest problem in the camp was malaria, and her biggest need was bed nets to protect families from mosquito bites in their sleep.
We would have gotten the same answer in almost any refugee camp in Africa. According to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, 90% of all malaria infections occur in sub-Saharan Africa, where malaria is the leading killer of children. Refugees are particularly vulnerable because they often live in hastily constructed camps which can have poor drainage and sanitary facilities and few medical resources.
On top of dealing with drones, a Taliban insurgency, and a government crackdown on that insurgency, the more than 2 million recently displaced persons in Pakistan will be forced to face a new and equally daunting challenge coming in three weeks, the rainy season and the malaria-bearing mosquitoes that soon follow.
This threat is particularly dire because the 18,000-plus families arriving every day, a migration that the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has called one the worst since the genocide in Rwanda, have been displaced from regions, the Swat, Lower Dir, and Buner districts of the Northwest Frontier Province, where malaria is not endemic. Refugees are ill-prepared to deal with the disease both because the refugee population has no pre-existing immunity to malaria and because the flow of internally displaced people (IDPs) is quickly overwhelming available resources, including access to life-saving bednets.
The Republic of Trinidad and Tobago has never been confused for a hotbed of international diplomacy -- the weather is hot, yes, but the diplomacy, not so much. As I prepared to head down to T&T to take up a diplomatic assignment a few years ago, a colleague with a full 15 years in the State Department looked at my name tag, which indicated my upcoming assignment, and said, "Port of Spain, now that's one I've never heard of, where is that?"
So, as President Obama, Secretary of State Clinton, UN Secretary General Ban and the rest of the hemisphere's leaders get ready for this year's Summit of the Americas, more than a few staffers, diplomats and journalists will be pulling out their atlases. One thing I'm sure they'll find in Trinidad is warm hospitality and, if they step away from the formal events, a good lime (more on that later). But, they will also find a small country facing many of the difficult issues that the Obama administration is currently trying to tackle.
In places where there are few cars, where roads remain unpaved, where basic infrastructure services such as clean water and electricity are scant, mobile phone technology has become an enabling power for millions of people. As many readers of UN Dispatch already know, this is particularly the case in the field of global health, where mobile technology is revolutionizing healthcare delivery in the developing world (see some examples here).
Today is World Health Day, a day set aside to highlight a priority area of concern for the World Health Organization. This year’s focus is on the safety of health facilities, and the readiness of health workers who treat those affected by emergencies – a challenge, particularly in remote and resource-poor environments where health workers may have infrequent contact with home offices.