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Tag Archive for: COVID-19

Africa: from crisis to opportunity

January 26, 2022/0 Comments/in Reflections

Ad Spijkers worked as a representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), among other places.

Africa: from crisis to opportunity

The picture is grim. Millions of people displaced and driven into poverty by climate change, COVID-19 and international conflict. An escalating food crisis, resulting from crop failures and rising costs of living. Africa has been particularly hard hit by this. Ethiopia, Somalia and eastern DR Congo, among others, are facing major problems. High inflation reduces purchasing power and the family budget in many countries is now largely spent on food and energy. Due to the crisis, fertilizer has become too expensive, so that the extra kilograms of grain that farmers obtained from a kilogram of fertilizer are now lost.

Prolonged drought, heat, excessive floodings and epidemics of pests and diseases complicate food production for the 1.4 billion Africans. Nigeria – Africa’s most populous country – is facing increased insecurity, inflation and job losses. In addition, divergent views within the United Nations and other international forums disrupt the development of the African agri-food systems and undermine food security. These phenomena can fuel inequality, instability and mass migration to Europe.

For these reasons, it remains essential to support in Africa an agricultural policy that deals strategically and responsibly with water, fertilization, crop protection, available labor and sales opportunities. In order to meet increasingly pressing local food needs, above all local insights must be used to bring about a ‘transformation’ of Africa’s agricultural systems. Crucial to this is the sustainable intensification of small-scale agriculture in particular. Local food production (also on a large scale), local processing and shortening Africa’s food chains can significantly reduce the escalating transport costs.

However, technical solutions alone will not turn the tide. Political vision, will and power at all levels of government is needed to face the growing humanitarian crisis. It is also in our interest, the ‘Global North’, to respect and promote Africa’s self-reliance. At the level of the African Union (AU), Africa itself is in charge of agriculture and food supply. Africans are also increasingly taking the lead at national and regional levels on the basis of their own education, knowledge, skills and experience.

We must respect and encourage this ownership, because a paternalistic attitude of the West is no longer appropriate. Western ideas, which are still part of project proposals and conditions, no longer resonate in Africa. In addition, other major powers are now more in charge, leaving the West geopolitically behind.

Due to the colonial past of many member states and the current agricultural policy and the associated protection, the European Union does not always promote African agriculture. If the Netherlands and the EU want to pursue a sincere development policy based on current geopolitical events, they will have to leave the familiar ‘belittling finger’ at home. The free sharing of knowledge and skills, and entering into egalitarian trade relations must be given priority, based on a greater respect for African ownership and leadership.

Europe and other Western powers can help shape agricultural research, education and development with and for Africa. Preferably orchestrated by the African Union and national governments and where necessary with input from multilateral institutions, development banks and universities. The starting point must be the specific needs and potential possibilities of African farmers. Co-financed with proceeds from Africa’s wealth of primary raw materials, the living conditions of the rural population could improve dramatically. Africa is as big as China, India, the United States and most of Europe put together. In Africa food security is synonymous with human security. Investments, are not enough and resources are needed to address the growing humanitarian challenge–where big powers need to work more actively on peace, security, climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation.

What has succeeded elsewhere in the Global South during the past fifty years must also become a reality in Africa. African ownership, confidence in one’s own abilities, international cooperation and mutual respect are sine qua non. The continent embodies gigantic potential and the political class increasingly has the means to crank up its economic engine. The joint formulation of a ‘Marshall Plan’ for agriculture – the cornerstone of the African economy – offers Europe a golden opportunity to pay off its colonial debt and offer the continent a better future.

This article is a revision of a column which was published in the December 2022 issue of the Dutch magazine Vork (https://www.vork.org). Thanks to Orlando de Ponti, Martin Smith and Kris Wyckhuys.

About this 4SD Reflection

This article is a reflection by Ad Spijkers following the 4SD Foundation Open Online Briefings of Dr David Nabarro.Ad worked as Representative of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. He is part of a group of Wageningen development veterans with extensive experience in Africa and Asia.

Participants of the 4SD Foundation Open Online Briefings are invited to share their reflections on how they are navigating complexities from their own perspectives. The views and opinions expressed in these reflections do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of 4SD as an organization or it’s associated personnel. Any content provided by authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.

https://4sd.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Reflections.jpg 210 638 thuy.nguyen https://4sd.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Logo-white.svg thuy.nguyen2022-01-26 15:00:502023-01-26 22:00:49Africa: from crisis to opportunity

The George Institute India Health Accelerator Programme launches a Health Innovation Challenge for COVID-19

May 31, 2021/1 Comment/in Reflections

Covid-Care @Home is an innovation challenge by The George Institute India Health Accelerator Programme covering an ideathon and hackathon aimed at developing innovative solutions for managing covid-19 at home with a focus on rural areas.

Call for Innovations under categories

  1. Management of COVID-19 at home and post COVID complications
  2. Ensuring access to essential medical supplies for management of COVID-19
  3. Tools for dissemination of verified information and tackling misinformation
  4. Mental health support for frontline health workers and people affected by COVID-19

Participation Criteria

  • Ideathon is open to school and college students
  • Hackathon is open to both individual innovators and early stage start ups

Submission Open Till 10/06/2021

The winner from each category will be awarded INR 50,000 and will be provided mentorship by leading industry experts as part of the TGI Health Innovation Fellowship

Learn more and apply now!

How it all began

A reflection by Dr Oommen John is a physician researcher and digital health expert. He works at The George Institute for Global Health India and a Professor at Prasanna School of Public Health, Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

In early April 2021, as the number of persons with COVID-19 were rising exponentially in India, the healthcare delivery systems began to crumble. As a health professional, I dreaded every phone call that I would receive during those days, on the other side would be a friend or acquaintance gasping for breath and pleading for help in finding a bed. As the pandemic surged, the frantic calls for help kept increasing beyond my capacity to respond and the guilt growing to the extent of needing to sedate my conscience and switch off the phone.  While you can cut off communications, the subconscious mind keeps processing those faint voices crying for help. As a public health professional I was desperate and looking for oxygen that could make the health systems stay alive, taking to social media to vent the frustration at the lack of systems approaches to addressing public health crisis.

The algorithms read between my words and led me to COVID-19 Open Online Briefings with Dr. David Nabarro hosted by 4SD. It was a transformative experience being part of the discussion led by David, driving home the key message around the pivotal role of systems approach for comprehensive COVID-19 response. I was invited to share my experiences from the ground, which provided an opportunity for experts from other regions to share what worked for them. In summarizing, David drove home the point that the ongoing pandemic is likely to linger for a long time and highlighted the need for systems thinking and whole of government response.

My participation at the Open Online Briefings and guidance provided by David got me thinking on how public health response in India and south east Asia could be augmented and prepared for this long haul.

I was reminded on an earlier instance of a prior humanitarian crisis that followed the massive earthquake in Nepal, where in a very short span of time we were able to develop and deploy an innovative solution to support health professionals who were involved in the relief work. “QuakeCare” was designed as a point of care decision support tool that provides evidence based guidance for triage and management of crush victims and initiate early treatment interventions to prevent complications. Why not a health innovations challenge for COVID-19?

This got us excited at the George Institute India Health Accelerator Programme, we sought input from innovators and start-ups being mentored by us. We also conducted a telephonic survey to understand the unmet needs from healthcare providers, people affected by COVID-19 in regions with limited healthcare delivery capacity in India and south-east Asia region.

While planning for the health innovation challenge, I contacted David and despite his busy engagement as Special Envoy of the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General on COVID-19 while the world health assembly being in session, I am honoured and overwhelmed at the support and guidance provided by him and the team at 4SD to support the [email protected] Health Innovation Challenge.


About this 4SD Reflection

This article is a reflection by Dr Oommen John following the COVID-19 Open Online Briefings of Dr. David Nabarro. Dr Oommen John is a physician researcher and digital health expert. He works at The George Institute for Global Health India and a Professor at Prasanna School of Public Health, Manipal Academy of Higher Education. He is an elected fellow of the International Academy of Health Science Informatics.

Trained as an internist, he has worked in primary care settings in resource-limited contexts across LMICS and has extensive field level experience in designing, implementing and evaluating innovative solutions and its applicability in health service delivery. He has served with WHO in Immunization Strengthening and Vaccine Delivery, Research and Development at WHO SEARO. At George Institute for global health India, he leads the India Health Accelerator Programme. His research involves evaluating the role of digital health interventions in improving clinical outcomes. He serves on the expert advisory panel for the Market Access Programme of National Health Authority, India.

He is a member of the scientific advisory committee at Foundation for Innovative Diagnostics (FIND), advisory board of Commonwealth Centre for Digital Health. He has contributed to WHO Digital Health Guidelines development group. Follow @Oommen_john and @GeorgeInstIN to keep up-to-date on social media.

Participants of the COVID-19 Open Online Briefings are invited to share their reflections on how they are navigating complexities from their own perspectives. The views and opinions expressed in these reflections are intended to inspire greater systems leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic. They do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of 4SD as an organisation or it’s associated personnel. Any content provided by authors are of their opinion and are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual or anyone or anything.
https://4sd.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/E2shIyYVkAAtp6l.jpg 838 1500 thuy.nguyen https://4sd.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Logo-white.svg thuy.nguyen2021-05-31 18:16:272021-05-31 18:16:27The George Institute India Health Accelerator Programme launches a Health Innovation Challenge for COVID-19

4SD COVID-READY PHOTO CHALLENGE

May 9, 2020/0 Comments/in News

We want to capture as many perspectives as possible for our pandemic response communications and your community photos and videos could be featured in our next COVID-Ready reel!

Read more
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NEWS

Chairing a Dialogue at Davos on the Future of Food

February 1, 2023/0 Comments/in News
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Hiring Now: Executive Assistant to David Nabarro

January 25, 2023/0 Comments/in News
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https://4sd.info/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/WE-ARE-HIRING-Executive-Assistant-1.jpg 469 1500 thuy.nguyen https://4sd.info/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/Logo-white.svg thuy.nguyen2023-01-25 10:04:272023-02-01 08:35:00Hiring Now: Executive Assistant to David Nabarro

Engaging thousands with Food Systems Summit Dialogues

October 25, 2022/0 Comments/in News
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Supporting Local Voices and Dialogues for Food Systems in the USA

October 4, 2022/0 Comments/in News
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