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May 8th Global Social: Latin America

By Anna Jensen-Clem

Tonight marked Global Washington’s third Global Social event, hosted by the HUB Seattle; the focus this time was Latin America. The three speakers focused primarily on development programs in Latin America and detailed their respective work across different sectors in the region.

Mauricio Vivero, Executive Director of the Seattle International Foundation spoke briefly about SIF’s model and introduced their basic program structure. After a brief overview of US-Central American history, Vivero placed SIF’s goals in context, saying that the organization believes that “true change comes from the bottom up, not the top down.” The Seattle International Foundation emphasizes building global capacity through “training health workers, women leaders, [and] creating economic opportunity to make countries more prosperous, more safe, and more equal.” By providing grants to Seattle-area groups that work overseas, Vivero said, SIF assists “thousands of people, like yourselves, who spend your day trying to make the world a better place.”

To that end, SIF has launched the Seattle Ambassador program—created to celebrate our development community. They invite anyone over the age of 18 who lives in Washington State to sign up and see how Seattle organizations are changing the world.

Katie Chandler, Program Director of Etta Projects spoke powerfully about the organization’s somewhat unorthodox approach to development. Rather than choose a specific sector and develop programs around it, Etta Projects determines each community’s “circumstances of poverty” and responds to all issues in a community. By adapting  projects to reflect what they need at a particular moment, Etta encourages local municipalities to contribute and maintain connection with rural communities. By “building a bridge” between rural communities and local municipalities, Etta provides new resources and opportunities for rural communities to care for their own health and to take advantage of programs that already exist. They have also started a local education program in Pierce County to teach kids about global education issues—water scarcity, the difference between poverty and extreme poverty and how it changes in different areas, and generally “opening ideas to youth” that normally aren’t on their radar.

Art Donnelly of SeaChar spoke passionately about the need for clean, environmentally efficient stoves in Costa Rica. Respiratory disease, usually triggered by breathing contaminated air from cooking fires, he said, is the leading cause of death among children under 10 years old and among agricultural workers in Costa Rica, and across Latin America. Clean stoves reduce carbon monoxide by over 80% and reduce inhaled particulate matter by over 90%, thus reducing incidences of death and disease across all ages.

Donnelly acknowledged that although clean cookstoves can be expensive to produce and distribute, SeaChar has developed a workshop training method and buyback policy, whereby they purchase charcoal produced by cooking fires and give families the financial resources to purchase a clean cookstove. In the last six months, 30 families participating in this program have produced 3.2 tons of charcoal; two tons have been put back in the ground and some has been re-sold to the government or to companies who burn charcoal. At this point, although the market exists for clean-burning stoves, and the materials are readily available, the stoves must still be transformed into a durable consumer product that can reach the more than 10 million people in Latin America who would benefit.

All told, about 25 people attended, and a large majority of those work directly in Latin America. After the presentations, attendees resumed networking, connecting, and chatting over wine, chips, and salsa.

General Petraeus returns – strongly supports USAID, state funding

By Anna Jensen-Clem

In an editorial published in Politico on Tuesday, General David Petraeus and Michael O’Hanlon make a strong case for maintaining current levels of foreign aid spending. General Petraeus argues that aid and development assistance, still only 0.19% of the United States’ GDP, “need not break the bank,” but would provide for long-term, effective projects across the globe. So-called soft power, which is relatively unpopular in the United States, is frequently presented as an unnecessary expense, especially in the face of sequestration cuts and growing deficits. Petraeus and O’Hanlon note that these programs have been extremely effective; PEPFAR, development assistance programs, and global health funding have reduced childhood and maternal mortality by one third and one half, respectively.

Both authors advocate for a reasonable budget solution—repeal sequestration and reduce the deficit through cuts to other spending. They make sure to note that “lawmakers should avoid the temptation to gut foreign aid just because it generally lacks a strong constituency in the United States.” Maintaining foreign aid saves lives and ensures a better future for our children; cutting it now would make little headway in debt reduction.

World Malaria Day at PATH: “We’ve learned what works.”

By Anna Jensen-Clem

On April 25th  more than 40 people from a wide array of global health nonprofits gathered to celebrate World Malaria Day at PATH’s headquarters in South Lake Union. Most of the evening focused on networking and a Marketplace event, where PATH, Pilgrim Africa, RESULTS, Rotary Malaria Partners, Seattle BioMed, the UW Department of Global Health, the Washington Global Health Alliance, World Vision, Health Alliance International, the Worldwide Antimalarial Resistance Network, and Global Washington hosted informational tables and highlighted their latest malaria research.

Amie Batson, PATH’s new Chief Strategy Officer, convened a panel of four speakers to discuss challenges and breakthroughs in malaria research and to reflect on some of the upcoming issues in finding a cure. In her introductory remarks, Batson stated that we have seen a 50% decrease in malaria cases in many endemic countries over the past few years, because “we’ve learned what works and we’re having impact.” With new technological developments, we are even “better poised” to save children’s lives and eradicate the disease altogether.

The panel members each spoke briefly about their own research and discussed the importance of developing a preventative vaccine and ensuring that the parasite does not become (more) resistant to new forms of antimalarials. They also spoke to the need to keep donors and funders engaged even as they no longer see malaria as a daily, existential threat in many parts of the world.

David Brandling-Bennett, Malaria Program Deputy Director, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, outlined a three-point strategy for eliminating malaria, in line with earlier efforts to eradicate polio and measles. We need to start early in the hardest endemic areas; learn to “get the last mile right” using the right tools and approach; and gather information and data along the way—as the Carter Center has done for its nearly-successful guinea worm eradication effort.

Kent Campbell, Malaria Control Program Director, PATH, argued that defeating malaria “has no middle ground,” meaning that we can either eradicate it or allow it to flourish. Essentially, he said, “controlling malaria means getting rid of malaria.” At this point, one of the main challenges is to formulate strategies and funding programs for eradication.

Stefan Kappe, Malaria Program Director at Seattle BioMed, emphasized the need for the right tools and argued that eradication without an effective vaccine will be extremely difficult because we need to focus on blocking transmission from mosquito to human in addition to treating the symptoms once someone is infected.

Carol Sibley, Scientific Director, Worldwide Artemisinin Resistance Network, focused on finding the right tools to mitigate resistance. Although some level of resistance to antimalarials is inevitable, she said, the real question is “how do we slow it down?” We need sensible, usable data and a centralized database for analysis; this will aid in finding solutions and slowing the speed of resistance.

For more information about World Malaria Day and PATH’s work to eradicate the disease, please visit their blog, and for more information about last night’s event, you can follow the twitter hashtags #WorldMalariaDay and #MalariaExpoSea.