Africa's Economic Dividend - Will it Really Pay Off?

I’ve long been a fan of the Economist. At newsstands, I feel a bit more intellectual bypassing People or Marie Claire, choosing instead the weekly British magazine doused with sharp reporting, ingenious writing and witty titles for even the smallest story.

This week’s “Africa Rising” cover of the Economist immediately grabbed me. The content highlighted the phenomenal growth of many African economies such as Ghana, Angola and Mozambique. Did you know the richest black person in the world is a Nigerian businessman, Aliko Dangote, who started a small trading business in the mid 1970’s? Desole Ms. Winfrey.

The article featured three reasons for Africa’s economic boom: Commodity growth (more than diamonds – Africa has oil, minerals and metals); technology, including the penetration of mobile phones; and political stability (still got my eye on these elections in Congo). The article also made numerous references to the continent’s economic growth and demography.

With the highest population growth in the world, Africa has the potential for an “economic dividend”. As reported, a well-educated generation is entering the African workforce and the ratio of working-age Africans to dependents is rising, giving the continent a boost such as was seen in Asia a few decades earlier. But the ever-sharp magazine was quick to point out what many public health professionals already know – high fertility rates and lofty rates of population growth, such as the trend in most of Africa, leave more mouths to feed, increased competition for resources, greater education needs, amplified poverty, further damaging impacts on the environment, and other negative impacts on health and society. These would in turn have detrimental effects on the continent’s economy.

Economic and demographic growth will continue in Africa. I hope the next article I read about the two topics makes an outright plea for family planning. After all, reducing unmet need, lowering fertility rates and increasing modern contraceptive use is great for an emerging economy. Maybe that will be in next month's Vanity Fair.

My Empathy Quotient

Over the past few years I have been poked, prodded and jabbed by every test possible. Psychological tests that is, which are successful at analyzing my personality, discovering my strengths and weaknesses, zeroing in on my leadership style, and uncovering my true talents. One of my favorites of these tests is Strengthfinder 2.0, as assessment which helps you highlight what you do well and instead of prompting you to improve on your shortcomings, motivates you to further expand on your strengths. According to the test, my top five strengths are the following:

- Communication (shocking that I have a blog)

- Empathy (Most of us public health nerds have lots of compassion)

- Arranger (that’s why I always organize the parties)

- Winning Others Over or WOO (not to be confused with a WOO girl; HIMYM fans get it)

- Positivity (always new I was a glass half full kinda gal)

This week I read an article about empathy and naturally my empathetic self took special note. The feature touted the benefits of empathy, saying “the trick to being a persuasive leader and clutch teammate, not to mention having better relationships, more emotional energy, robust health and joy every day is empathy”. The article proceeded to offer the less empathetic readers ways to “ramp up their empathy”.

So, I got to thinking about my so-called strength. Just how does empathy play into my everyday life and make me a better professional and friend? I won’t bore you with the self-analysis but bottom line is that, despite the fact that I have a high empathy quotient, I can still step it up. Though I have a lot of compassion, I need to do a better job of walking the walk. I’ve been saying for ages that I want to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. Why have I not just gone online and signed up? So often I find fabulous charities and I’ve preached the gospel about how even microdonoations can make a significant difference. Why am I not regularly donating, even just a little bit? To make myself feel like I am an active empathetic woman, I lean on the crutch of my work at a non-profit. After all, I spend most hours of my day working feverishly to help my fellow global citizens have access to healthcare and a qualified, supported health workforce.

I know the definition of empathy is more than compassion but the compassionate part of empathy is what is resonating with me the most these days. As we round the corner into December, the season of giving, I am going to do a bit more for others and I encourage anyone reading this blog to think about their empathy quotient and take 5 minutes to psychoanalyze themselves. I urge you to dig deep into what may really fulfill you this holiday season.

Note to readers: you do not have to feel bad about misplacing any empathy for Duke’s loss to Ohio State this week.

New Beginnings - Sort Of

This year I celebrated the eve of All Saint’s Day, aka Halloween, with a new job! I recently accepted a new position as Program Manager at IntraHealth. I am still working on the CapacityPlus program but in my new role I am transitioning to manage different result areas and a variety of our field programs including Nigeria, Ghana and our work with the LAC Bureau (Latin America and the Caribbean). Expect many exciting blog posts about HRH advocacy, work with HRH Observatories throughout Africa, human resource management, community health workers, cross-border studies, case studies, and Nigeria.

Switching gears, today’s headline on People.com screamed the news that the Duggar family is expecting 20^th child. A few hours after their announcement, there was a posting of the family defending their decision to have yet another Duggar baby. My MCH girls and I spent the lunch hour examine the inappropriate birth spacing practices of Michelle Duggar and counting her excessive number of C-sections.

On Yahoo, I read about Mississippi’s Initiative 26. This proposed amendment would not only make abortion illegal but, because of the wording of the amendment, could lead to an outlaw of birth control pills and IUDs. Reading this I was horrified and disappointed.

As much as I promote access to family planning in the developing world, I feel I may need to step up my advocacy efforts for family planning here at home. I am hoping tomorrow's "headlines" are a bit more promising.

1 in 7

In October 1999, I was living in Angers, France. I was halfway through a rich study abroad program, spending my weeks mastering French literature and perfecting my French grammar while on the weekends I was jubilantly traveling around Europe hand in hand with my Eurail pass. Also in October 1999, the world’s population reached 6 billion.

Sometime in the next week, the world’s population will arrive at another milestone – 7 billion people. In just 12 years, another billion people have been added to our planet. As people continue to live longer and fertility rates are still quite high in many parts of the world, we are on track to continue this remarkable growth. But can we handle it? Can our environment handle it? Will there be enough food and water for billions more people when currently wells are drying up and famines are haunting thousands? Are there enough natural resources for another couple of billion people? What about people living in poverty, how can population growth possibly help alleviate those already struggling?

I cannot help but think about the importance of family planning when discussing demographics. Family planning has long been linked with aiming to reduce population growth, ease poverty, and address health and education inequities. Bolstered by the landmark 1994 International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD) in Cairo, the international health community also recognized that family planning programs must include the reproductive and sexual needs and rights of individuals. However, despite the enthusiasm of the ICPD, family planning strengthening efforts and funding for family planning programs have dropped on the lists of international development priorities.

I have a feeling some momentum will soon return to the family planning champions. Not only because of the growing population but also because in late November, the second International Family Planning Conference will take place in Dakar, Senegal. The 2011 conference will bring together participants to share research, best practices, and progress on national strategies to deliver family planning services, with the ultimate goal being universal access to family planning.

I found out this week that I will not be able to attend this conference. To say I am disappointed is an understatement. Not only did I want to present data from my Masters Paper (which was accepted by conference organizers), but also I wanted to participate in those rich discussions that so often occur in hallways or at cafes during international conferences. I am particularly interested in family planning gains in West Africa and what is being done to mitigate unmet need and demand for modern family planning methods. Too, I am keen to learn more about how the global health community envisions just how it will help developing countries meet family planning goals in light of severe shortages of health professionals. There have been so many gains through engaging community health workers – I want to learn more about how are we training these front line health workers to provide quality care and also, what is being done to provide quality family planning education for future health professionals in medical and nursing schools?

Despite my disappointment in not being able to attend the November conference, I do not have to be in Senegal to contribute to global family planning efforts. In fact, one of my activities at work these days is creating an innovative online refresher family planning course for faculty at a rural, private nursing school in Mali – in French. It’s a good thing that 12 years ago as the world’s population growth was setting records, I was studying French in Angers!

Va Ca Tion

va·ca·tion

 

–noun

1.

a period of suspension of work, study, or other activity,usually used for rest, recreation, or travel; recess orholiday: Schoolchildren are on vacation now.

2.

a part of the year, regularly set aside, when normalactivities of law courts, legislatures, etc., are suspended.

3.

freedom or release from duty, business, or activity.

4.

an act or instance of vacating.

For the first time ever, I did not check work email while on vacation! Here is what I was doing instead...

Observing gorgeous sunsets over the Adirondacks!

Going on covered bridge hunts all over Vermont!

Indulging in all of the in-season treats like apples!

Noting very weird things like a mushroom growing out of a tree in Woodstock, Vt!

Taking in the sites and lovely weather in Montreal!

Animal Love

London

Whether you are a dog or cat person (or both), our animals are good for our health. I know after a particular rough day, snuggles from my dog London make everything so much better. Here are some pictures of my favorite pets out there that make life much happier (and healthier).

Jaxson

Artistic Tucker

Ms Ellie Cat

Indicating what exactly?

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about data. We spend so much time, not to mention tax payer dollars, traveling to the field and collecting a heck of a lot of information about health. DHS anyone? Recently it has really hit me how important it is to not only collect the data but to collect the right data and ask the smart questions so we can properly monitor progress. One of the best quotes I recently heard was, “You don’t improve what you don’t measure.” Suddenly, indicators have become quite attractive but they are only useful if they measure the right variable or outcome and people use them. Of the gazillion guidebooks and handbooks for M&E, I wonder how often those (hopefully) well thought out indicators are actually used. And if we are all using different measurement tools, are we really measuring the same things?

I work in a world of human resources for health and health systems strengthening. Metrics for progress in these areas is difficult. Our work and innovative interventions are not as cut and dry as a lot of service delivery projects i.e. providing vaccines or ARVs. The past few weeks I’ve felt like a student again as I’ve participated in a multitude of webinars and conference calls related to various HRH topics. A recurrent theme: measuring our work and linking health successes to our health system and HRH interventions. HSS and HRH are no longer new – we’ve been doing this for quite some time and it’s time to show the world that what we are doing indeed is improving health outcomes for populations in developing countries.

What does an indicator really look like for measuring health workforce development? My project recently released a compendium of HRH indicators (http://www.capacityplus.org/hrhic/content/introduction), which proves to be a useful guide. I recently suggested to my team that before finalizing a simple progress report template for a health training program in Uganda, I wanted to consult this compendium to make sure we were capturing any data satisfying HRH indicators. In my own little way, I’m committing to using the right indicators so that any data I can collect can be properly measured and evaluated in the HRH world!