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2017-01-25
Taylor & Francis Group;
The Mekong Basin Disease Surveillance (MBDS) network was formally established in 2001 through a Memorandum of Understanding signed by six Ministers of Health of the countries in the Greater Mekong sub-region: Cambodia, China (Yunnan and Guangxi), Lao PDR, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. The main areas of focus of the network are to: i) improve cross-border infectious disease outbreak investigation and response by sharing surveillance data and best practices in disease recognition and reporting, and by jointly responding to outbreaks; ii) develop expertise in epidemiological surveillance across the countries; and iii) enhance communication between the countries. Comprised of senior health officials, epidemiologists, health practitioners, and other professionals, the MBDS has grown and matured over the years into an entity based on mutual trust that can be sustained into the future. Other regions have started emulating the network's pioneering work. In this paper, we describe the development of MBDS, the way in which it operates today, and some of its achievements. We present key challenges the network has faced and lessons its members have learned about how to develop sufficient trust for health and other professionals to alert each other to disease threats across national borders and thereby more effectively combat these threats.
2017-01-01
Ending Pandemics;
* In July 2014, Skoll Global Threats Fund (SGTF) gave a $2 million, two-year grant to Chiang Mai University in Thailand to create the Participatory One Health Disease Detection (PODD) project—a first-of-its-kind community-owned pandemic surveillance and response system. SGTF issued a second grant in July 2016 to help scale the program to other regions in Thailand.
* The goal of PODD is to enable early detection of animal-borne (zoonotic) disease outbreaks and prevent them from becoming pandemics. The grant funded the development and launch of a Thai-built mobile app that local volunteers use to report suspected outbreaks and other dangerous events, as well as the development of a protocol for coordinating fast evaluation and response among local government officials, veterinarians, and public health experts.
* The PODD program had 300 trained local volunteers at launch, growing to more than 4,600 volunteers two years later.
* Within the first few months, volunteers reported more animal disease events in those districtsusing PODD than had been reported in the whole province of Chiang Mai in the previous year. Within 16 months, 1,340 abnormal events were reported. Among those, a total of 36 incidents of dangerous zoonotic diseases were verified.
* The early detection of one case of foot-and mouth disease, stopped before it could spread, saved $4 million.
* PODD volunteers are now also using the system to report a range of other hazards, from fraudulent medication sales to landslides and flash floods.
* In July 2016, Chiang Mai University transferred ownership of the PODD tool to the Thai government, which, with additional funding, could expand the project to additional provinces and eventually nationwide.
2015-12-08
Oxfam GB;
This evaluation is presented as part of the Effectiveness Review Series 2014/15, selected for review under the resilience thematic area. This report documents the findings of a quasi-experimental evaluation carried out in December 2014 that sought to assess the impact of the activities of the development and scale up of a climate change community-based adaptation model for food security project.
Oxfam and local organization Earth Net Foundation (ENF) have worked together since 2004 to promote organic rice farming and fair trade marketing in Yasothon province. The project under review was also implemented in partnership with the Healthy Public Policy Foundation and Climate Change Knowledge Management and was carried out in two provinces - three sub-districts of Yasothon in the Northeast, and one sub-district in Chiang Mai in the North. The project had three specific objectives: 1) increase resilience and adaptation capacity of small scale farmers to weather variability and climate change through the development of a self-sustainable climate change adaptation model; 2) scale up implementation of the model to reach new communities and support national development of the agenda on climate change adaptation and food security; and 3) foster cooperation among NGOs, community-based organizations, scholars, local and central government and the private sector to achieve the other objectives.
For more information, the data for this effectiveness review is available through the UK Data Service. Read more about the Oxfam Effectiveness Reviews>.
2015-12-02
Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society (CAPS);
An innovative model developed in collaboration with the Siam Commercial Bank Foundation allows young people in Songkhla Province to design and implement community development projects to develop life skills and a sense of civic-mindedness.
In 1991, the Songkhla Forum (SF) was established as a communications platform to share information and raise awareness so that the people of Songkhla, a strategically important province on the border with Malaysia, could participate in the development of the province and country at large.
In 2012, SF received help in the form of a new partner, the Siam Commercial Bank Foundation (SCBF). This collaboration has resulted in an innovative new model for young people to contribute to Songkhla's development while growing their self-confidence and capacity as engaged citizens. Since then, some 300 youth have come together through SF to work on more than 60 community development projects, some of which have made a significant contribution to civic life in the province.
2015-12-02
Centre for Asian Philanthropy and Society (CAPS);
With the patronage of a royal princess, two women from different sides of the railway track came together to establish a daycare center in one of Thailand's most notorious slums to change the lives of poor urban families.
The Foundation for Slum Child Care (FSCC) was officially started in June 1981, and through a series of fortuitous events would come under the royal patronage of the late HRH Princess Galyani Vadhana. For nearly 35 years, it has worked to improve the quality of life of Bangkok's slum children: in 2014 alone, 2,133 children less than five years old were cared for by FSCC, whose operations have extended to four other slum communities in the capital.
Beyond the delivery of daycare services for the urban poor, the FSCC has established itself as a benchmark for child-care services and early childhood education in Thailand through its affiliate network and cutting-edge training programs, which include certification courses for informal nurseries and general early child-care development courses.
2015-01-01
Rockefeller Foundation;
The Rockefeller Foundation initiated a nine-year Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network (ACCCRN) in ten initial cities and four countries1 in 2008. ACCCRN seeks to strengthen the capabilities of cities to plan, finance and implement urban climate change resilience (UCCR) strategies for coping with the inevitable impacts of climate change taking place now, and in the decades to come.
The approach also involves capturing details from the various experiences that will be useful to other cities as they realize the critical importance of building resilience to climate change. Although the initiative is ongoing and has expanded to include two more countries and more than 20 additional cities, this brief highlights the key insights we took from analysis of progress in the first ten cities over the first five years and the changes observable thus far.
2014-05-07
Migration Policy Institute;
Several governments in the Asia-Pacific region have actively engaged in the United Nations' Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) for the past seven years, as both participants and leaders. Virtually every country in the region has assigned representatives in GFMD's network of country focal points, eight Asia-Pacific countries are part of GFMD Steering Group, and a number have contributed to the roundtable and thematic meetings either as co-chairs or team members. Three countries from the region were also part of a 14-member Assessment Team that outlined the future of the Forum after 2012.
The region's active engagement has helped shape the themes and topics of GFMD meetings, beginning with the first meeting convened in 2007. However, during this time, the challenges facing migrants and their families have not abated. To remain relevant, the GFMD must become as instrumental in shaping the reality on the ground as it has been in shaping the global discourse on migration and development. The 2012 GFMD assessment shows participant states' demand for a more development-focused and results-driven forum.
The GFMD could provide more opportunities for collaboration between governments and other migration stakeholders. While becoming more action-oriented, it should continue to shape the agenda on migration and development and set international priorities among the wide range of issues that demands attention. Toward these ends, the GFMD would benefit from (1) an enhanced linkage with regional fora and processes; (2) a more dynamic people-to-people networking platform where policymakers can find partners, pilot projects, test ideas, and develop policy and programmatic tools; and (3) a more focused, action-oriented, and results-driven process for the next five years.
This brief argues that although the Global Forum on Migration and Development was primarily designed as a venue for changing the discourse on migration, the success of its efforts to date and the pressing need for progress on the ground both indicate that it is time to assess how the Forum can facilitate concrete action.
2014-04-07
Association for Computing Machinery;
This paper reports the work in progress of incorporating a participatory disease detection mechanism into the existing web- and mobile device application DoctorMe in Thailand. As Southeast Asia has a high likelihood of hosting potential outbreaks of epidemics it is crucial to enable citizens to collectively contribute to improved public health through crowdsourced data, which is currently lacking. This paper focuses foremost on the localized approach, utilizing elements such as gamification, digital volunteerism and personalized health recommendations for participating users. DoctorMe'sparticipatory disease detection approach aims to tap into the accelerating technological landscape in Thailand and to improve personal health and provide valuable data for institutional analysis that may prevent or decrease the impact of infectious disease outbreaks.
2013-04-25
Asia Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy (ACSEP) in National University of Singapore, The;
This publication is the second in a series of ACSEP working papers concerned with what is termed 'entrepreneurial social finance' in Asia, which explores how philanthropy is responding to the financial and nonfinancial needs of the region's social entrepreneurs. The term philanthropy is most commonly associated with straightforward grant making, most usually making donations where all capital is lost and no return expected.
In modern practice, philanthropy is more sophisticated and diverse than this, wanting to utilise as many tools as possible with the goal of creating sustained social change. Recognising this, philanthropy is defined in this study, as the deployment of financial and human capital for primarily social impact.
For this reason, this paper investigates the growing interest in 'impact investing,' which seeks to use non-grant finance to maximise the social and financial outcomes by investing in social businesses.
This study employs an essentially qualitative methodology. The researchers conducted 40 face-to-face and telephone interviews in Singapore, India, China, Japan, the Philippines and Thailand between March and November 2012. In-depth interviews were chosen as the central component of the study to gain insight into the personal motivations of lead individuals who had founded or who are managing philanthropy organisations.
2013-03-11
Center for Civil Society Studies at Johns Hopkins Institute for Policy Studies;
A "global associational revolution," a major upsurge of organized, private, voluntary and nonprofit activity, has been under way around the world for the past thirty years or more. Despite the scale and scope of this development, however, official data to portray it have long been lacking. This report takes an important step toward remedying this situation by presenting a summary of new findings from the implementation b statistical offices in sixteen countries of the United Nations "Handbook on Nonprofit Institutions in the System of National Accounts".
Developed by the Johns Hopkins Center for Civil Society Studies in cooperation with the UN Statistics Division and an International Technical Experts Group, and issued by the U.N. in 2003, this Handbook calls on national statistical offices to produce regular "satellite accounts" on nonprofit institutions and volunteering for the first time, and provides detailed guidance on how to do so. The result is a far more complete official picture of the scope and structure of the nonprofit or civil societ sector than has ever been available in these countries.
This report presents the findings from the implementation of this UN NPI Handbook in 16 countries aound the world, including data on the comparative workforce, contribution to GDP, expenditures, revenues, and distribution of activities, and an in-depth look at the advantages off the Handbook approach over the traditional SNA methods of measurement.
It is our hope that this report will help to encourage civil society and foundation leaders, volunteer promotion organizations, and statistical offices in other countries to promote the implementation of the UN NPI Handbook in their countries. The result will be to make the nonprofit and volunteer sector more visible, enhance its credibility, enable more effective partnerships between NPIs and public and private institutions, open new research opportunities for scholars, improve the clarity with which national accounts statistics portray national economies, and ultimately to improve citizen well-being.
2012-08-01
Rockefeller Foundation;
As of August 2012, the Rockefeller Foundation has approved and funded 23 city projects that build urban climate change resilience (UCCR). These interventions have been initiated in the 10 core ACCCRN cities and have amounted to US $9.4 million, with some additional contributions from local governments and other local partners. Through ACCCRN, new projects in the 10 core cities will continue to be initiated until 2014, further expanding the base of practice. The city projects include both "hard" and "soft" measures, span multiple thematic sectors -- flood/ drainage, disaster risk reduction, water resources, housing and health -- with most projects addressing more than one sector in a single intervention. They also employ a range of approaches e.g. planning, further analysis, direct action, and coordination mechanisms.
This catalogue provides a brief overview of ACCCRN city projects across 10 cities.The following project sheets provide basic information about the city project, intended impacts and key beneficiaries.They also highlight the climate change vulnerabilities and urban issues that each project aims to address, as well as how projects contribute to improved urban climate resilience of the city's systems. These aspects are further explained below and are highlighted in each project sheet.
2011-11-01
United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP);
This regional resource document, produced for the East Asian Sea region, integrates emerging issues such as climate change and sea-level rise, and new management concepts such as ecosystem-based management, disaster risk reduction and results-based management into spatial planning and coastal zone management procedures and processes. It is intended to be used as the basis for individual country consultations on their national needs and priorities for capacity building in spatial planning, which may be in the area of mapping and scenario exercises on climate change vulnerability, risk analysis and planning exercises, or perhaps a more basic understanding of how to integrate the principles of ecosystem-based management into existing national spatial planning regimes.
