November 2011

  • November 02, 2011

    Empowering Women and Girls: South Africa's Strategy for Economic Growth

    Elizabeth Futrell

    JHU∙CCP | Technical Writer

    Late last month, Her Excellency Lulama Xingwana, South Africa’s Minister for Women, Children, and People with Disabilities led a delegation of South African businesswomen to Chicago to attend the United States-South Africa Women’s Business Forum. In keeping with its theme— “Building Bridges through Women Empowerment”—the forum fostered professional connections and expanded access to opportunities for economic growth that will benefit both the U.S. and South African entrepreneurs.

    On October 25, at a forum session titled “Empowering Women for Economic Growth in South Africa,” Xingwana stated her hopes that the week’s events would create a culture of innovative thinking, foster an environment for business to thrive, cultivate business partnerships on a local and global scale, and establish a space for women as innovators. The talk, hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, focused largely on the development of a bill to strengthen gender equity in South Africa’s public and private sectors. Over the past two decades, South Africa has developed one of the world’s strongest legal frameworks for upholding women’s rights. Xingwana credited the equality women enjoy in South Africa to two elements. One is South Africa’s empowering legislation, including the Bill of Rights of the South African Constitution (1996); the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act (1996); the Employment Equity Act (1998); the Maintenance Act (1998); and the Promotion of Equality and Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act (2000).

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  • November 01, 2011

    Optimistic in Bangladesh

    Piers Bocock

    K4Health, JHU∙CCP | Project Director

    On October 31, 2011, three babies were born in a small clinic in the Bangladeshi town of Cox’s Bazar, on the Bay of Bengal. Their names are Kaneta (a girl), Kulsoma (a boy), and Halima (a girl). It’s quite possible that one of them is the seven billionth person on the planet.

    Today marks the last of seven whirlwind days for me in Bangladesh, a country that never seems to stop. It is of course crowded—among the most densely populated countries in the world—and an appropriate place to mark the estimated date when the global population reached 7 billion people. The cacophony of honking horns and construction never seems to end. But neither does the progress.

    Six days ago, I arrived in Dhaka to work with K4Health’s exciting new initiative here, the Bangladesh Knowledge Management Initiative (BKMI). The Government of Bangladesh (GOB), with support from USAID, has asked that K4Health leverage its global, regional, and country-based experiences using Knowledge Management and Exchange (KME) principles to help improve the delivery of key integrated messaging for health workers across three main areas: Family Planning and Reproductive Health (FP/RH), Maternal and Child Health (MCH), and Nutrition. As part of the project, K4Health is fielding three technical advisors who will sit within the associated GOB offices to provide them day-to-day technical assistance and capacity building in communication and KME. Specifically, K4Health will assist GOB staff with collection, coordination, synthesis, and application of FP/RH, MCH, and Nutrition messaging that has been shown to motivate healthier behaviors. Further, in line with K4Health’s information communication technology (ICT) innovations, we will support GOB in its vision for a “Digital Bangladesh” by using appropriate technologies to disseminate behavior change communication (BCC) messaging, including our online and offline electronic Toolkits application, eLearning courses, netbooks, and messaging delivered over mobile phones.

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