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1. Does an effective government lower COVID19’s health impact? Evidence from Viet Nam

Author:
Duc Anh Dang and Ngoc Anh Tran
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Government effectiveness has played an important role in tackling the crisis caused by the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. This paper discusses the different aspects of government effectiveness in explaining the variation in the COVID-19 confirmed cases and death levels in Viet Nam. We use the Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index in 2019 to measure the quality of government effectiveness at the local level. The findings show the importance of health system capacity in the battle against COVID-19. We find that increased government transparency is significantly associated with lower confirmed rates. For the impact of the level of participation, we find that provinces that have higher quality of village head elections or where people have more opportunities to participate tend to have lower infected cases, especially where people participate in the formal and informal association and have voted in the National Assembly election.
Topic:
Government, Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Vietnam and Southeast Asia

2. Health and ethnic inequalities in Mozambique with special reference to leprosy

Author:
Isabel Maria Casimiro and Júlio Machele
Publication Date:
05-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The subject of this paper is health and ethnic inequalities in Mozambique, with special reference to leprosy. It is argued that the health policies and strategies adopted in the colonial and post-colonial periods led to an unequal distribution not only of certain diseases but also of health infrastructures. The colonial regime, by neglecting and creating ineffective leprosaria in central and northern Mozambique, ‘ethnicized’ Lazarus disease, a fact corroborated by its current unequal distribution. In turn, post-colonial health policies and health coverage failed to take this inequality into account. The current National Leprosy Control Program aims to end leprosy and thus eliminate its identification with the ethnolinguistic groups in northern and central Mozambique. This qualitative study, which draws on reports from the Ministry of Health and NGOs, statistics, and observations, falls within the scope of the social sciences, with an emphasis on the comparative historical-sociological method.
Topic:
Health, Inequality, Ethnicity, and Leprosy
Political Geography:
Africa and Mozambique

3. Does women’s empowerment affect the health of children? The case of Mozambique

Author:
Joseph Deutsch and Jacques Silber
Publication Date:
12-2017
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
In developing countries, women’s decisions concerning their children’s health depend on ‘empowerment’ concerning decision-making, husband/partner’s use of violence, woman’s attitude towards this violence, available information, and resources. We derive an empowerment indicator using the ‘fuzzy sets’ and Alkire and Foster approaches to multidimensional poverty measurement. The health of children is a latent variable; their height and weight are observed health indicators. We apply the ‘MIMIC’ approach to the 2009 Mozambique Demographic and Health Survey. Children’s health is better when the woman opposes her partner’s violence, the higher her education and body mass index, among female children, and in urban areas.
Topic:
Demographics, Health, Poverty, Children, Women, and Empowerment
Political Geography:
Africa and Mozambique

4. Multidimensional poverty and wellbeing in Mozambique

Author:
Ricardo Santos and Vincenzo Salvucci
Publication Date:
02-2017
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Poverty is a multidimensional phenomenon involving things other than consumption — such as access to and quality of health and education, housing, possession of durable goods, freedom, and many other factors. The consumption and multidimensional poverty approaches are complementary: it is possible for example that a family has consumption levels below the poverty line but lives in a good quality home, its members have a good level of education, and vice versa.
Topic:
Education, Health, Poverty, Survey, and Housing
Political Geography:
Africa and Mozambique

5. Multi-actor Approaches to Total Sanitation in Africa

Author:
Kei Otsuki, Weena Gera, and David Mungai
Publication Date:
12-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Since the 2000s, African cities have witnessed a series of interventions to improve water and sanitation. This policy brief outlines key lessons learned from the intervention experience, drawing on the UNU research project Multi-level Urban Governance for Total Sanitation (2011-2013) under the Education for Sustainable Development in Africa (ESDA) Project. It highlights the importance of multi-actor approaches for promoting: (1) an institutional framework to coordinate civil society organizations, community-based organizations, and the state agencies across levels; (2) policy recognition of water and sanitation as socially embedded infrastructure with gendered dimensions; and (3) the relevance of scientific research and university education to ongoing policy interventions.
Topic:
Civil Society, Development, Health, and Infrastructure
Political Geography:
Africa

6. Towards Zero Waste in Industrial Networks: Policy Recommendations from the ZeroWIN Project

Author:
Claudia Luepschen, Ruediger Kuehr, and Federico Magalini
Publication Date:
10-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
ZeroWIN (Towards Zero Waste in Industrial Networks) is a five-year project (2009-2014) under the European Commission's Seventh Research Framework Programme. The ZeroWIN project has developed effective strategies for waste prevention through industrial networks. Ten industrial case studies in the automotive, construction, electronics and photovoltaic industries form the core of the project and exchange energy, water and materials in such a way that waste from one industry becomes raw material for another. This brief suggests what can be done to advance the implementation of industrial networks in practice, based on first outcomes of the ZeroWIN project. The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme FP7 2007-2013 under grant agreement n° 226752
Topic:
Energy Policy, Health, Industrial Policy, and Infrastructure
Political Geography:
Europe

7. Water Security the Global Water Agenda

Author:
Sefano Burchi, Pasquale Steduto, Eelco van Beek, Patrick MacQuarrie, Anton Earle, Anders Jägerskog, and David Coates et al
Publication Date:
03-2013
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This Brief offers a working definition of water security developed from contributions made by the broad range of organizations, agencies, programmes and institutions that form UN-Water. Through this Brief, UN-Water aims to capture the constantly evolving dimensions of water-related issues, offering a holistic outlook on challenges under the umbrella of water security. It highlights the main challenges to be addressed, the role water security plays in policy agendas, and possible options for addressing water security challenges.
Topic:
Security, Health, Natural Resources, and Water
Political Geography:
United Nations

8. Partnerships for Women's Health: Striving for Best Practice within the UN Global Compact

Author:
Monika Kruesmann and Martina Timmermann
Publication Date:
09-2009
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Women represent the great majority of the world's poor. With this poverty comes a range of well-documented problems: low educational attainment; low income and earning potential; inferior social power, status and influence compared with men; and importantly, poor health outcomes for both women and their children. High rates of maternal mortality and morbidity remain apparently intractable problems in many countries, particularly developing countries. The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that every minute, at least one woman dies from complications related to pregnancy and childbirth; and 20 more suffer injury, infection or disease.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Health, Treaties and Agreements, and United Nations
Political Geography:
United States

9. How Macroeconomic Instability Lowers Child Survival

Author:
Julie Subervie, Patrick Guillaumont, and Catherine Korachais
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The reduction of child mortality is one of the most universally accepted Millennium Goals. However, there is a significant debate on the means of reaching it and its realism with regard to the situation in most of the least developed countries. The recommendations made for the achievement of this goal are mainly medical ones. However, without underestimating the importance of these measures, in particular vaccinations, it seems increasingly obvious that the rate of reduction of child mortality is mainly determined by the evolution of macroeconomic environment. The influence of per capita income level on mortality is frequently underlined.
Topic:
Development, Health, and Third World

10. Individual and Collective Resources and Health in Morocco

Author:
Marie-Claude Martin
Publication Date:
03-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The interaction between available individual and collective resources in the determination of health is largely ignored in the literature on the relationship between poverty and health in developing countries. We analyse the role public resources play in the perception that rural women in Morocco have of their health. These resources are taken to contribute directly and indirectly to the improvement of individual health by, on the one hand, providing a health-promoting environment and, on the other, improving the individual's ability to produce health. The empirical results of multilevel models confirm the expected associations between socioeconomic status, individual vulnerability factors and health. Furthermore, the random part of the model suggests that variation in state of health is also associated with the presence of collective resources. However, the higher the level of women's individual wealth, the less the characteristics of the community in which they live seem to be associated with their health, and the less the potential vulnerability factors seem to constrain their ability to maintain or improve health. Our results suggest that collective investments derived from various areas of activity will be more favourable to improving health, insofar as they are adapted to the initial capacity of women to benefit from them.
Topic:
Gender Issues, Health, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Africa and Morocco

11. Intra-Household Arrangements and Health Satisfaction: Evidence from Mexico

Author:
Mariano Rojas
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper uses a subjective wellbeing approach to study the role of household arrangements on the health satisfaction of an individual. It also studies the impact of household arrangements on health satisfaction across different income groups, by contrasting two main theories of the family: the altruistic/communitarian theory, which emphasizes altruism within the family, implies that the within-the-household allocation of relevant health satisfaction resources leads towards an egalitarian distribution of health satisfaction, and second, the cooperative bargaining theory according to which the family emerges as the cooperative equilibrium outcome from the unilateral interests of each household member. Thus, each household member takes advantage of their bargaining power to attain an equilibrium that favours their personal interests. According to the latter approach, the intra-household allocation of relevant health satisfaction resources leads to a distribution of health satisfaction that closely follows the distribution of bargaining power.
Topic:
Civil Society and Health
Political Geography:
Mexico

12. Livelihood Risk from HIV in Semi-Arid Tropics of Rural Andhra Pradesh

Author:
B. Valentine Joseph Gandhi, M. Cynthia Serquiña Bantilan, and Devanathan Parthasarathy
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper discusses the livelihood dynamics in the fragile landscape of the semi-arid tropics (SAT) of Andhra Pradesh. SAT is home to the poorest of the poor who live in conditions of persistent drought, subsistence agriculture and poor access to markets. This paper is a case study focusing particularly on labour migration, its role in influencing the health risk behaviour of migrants and in the spread of the HIV epidemic among SAT rural households. The most vulnerable population in these drought-prone regions are the migrant labourers, and their vulnerability is influenced by three major factors—the vulnerability and unstable productivity in the degraded and marginal landscape, the caste system that has traditionally kept them backward and vulnerable, and experiences in the external environment to which they migrate. This study—based on a theoretical framework, whereby livelihood risks lead to health risks, particularly HIV infection—outlines the process that causes a further deterioration of the household and the occurrence of cyclical health risk. The paper calls for a multisectoral approach to tackle the issue of migrant vulnerability, and for interventions with a more migrant-need sensitive approach.
Topic:
Agriculture, Health, and Migration
Political Geography:
Andhra Pradesh

13. Natural Disasters and Remittances: Exploring the Linkages between Poverty, Gender, and Disaster Vulnerability in Caribbean SIDS

Author:
Marlene Attzs
Publication Date:
06-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper explores the linkages between poverty and disaster vulnerability in the context of remittance flows to households in the Caribbean. Jamaica is used as the case study country. The paper discusses the channels through which natural disasters and remittances affect each other but also reviews the distribution of female-headed households in Jamaica as a percentage of households living below the poverty line and seeks to identify whether flows of remittances alleviate the post-disaster living conditions of such households.
Topic:
Disaster Relief, Gender Issues, Health, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Caribbean and Jamaica

14. The Role of Women's Empowerment and Domestic Violence in Child Growth and Undernutrition in a Tribal and Rural Community in South India

Author:
Kavita Sethuraman
Publication Date:
02-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Moderate undernutrition continues to affect 46 per cent of children under 5 years of age and 47 per cent of rural women in India. Women's lack of empowerment is believed to be an important factor in the persistent prevalence of undernutrition. In India, women's empowerment often varies by community, with tribes sometimes being the most progressive. This paper explores the relationship between women's empowerment, domestic violence, maternal nutritional status, and the nutritional status and growth over six months in children aged 6 to 24 months in a rural and tribal community. This longitudinal observational study undertaken in rural Karnataka, India included tribal and rural subjects. Structured interviews with mothers were conducted and anthropometric measurements were obtained for 820 mother-child pairs, the follow-up rate after 6 months was 82 per cent. The data were analyzed by multivariate regression. Some degree of undernutrition was seen in 83.5 per cent of children and 72.4 per cent of mothers in the sample, moreover the prevalence of undernutrition increased among children at follow up. Domestic violence was experienced by 34 per cent of mothers in the sample. In multivariate analysis, biological variables explained most of the variance in nutritional status and child growth, followed by health-care seeking and women's empowerment variables; socio-economic variables explained the least variance. Women's empowerment variables were significantly associated with child nutrition on enrolment and child growth at follow-up. At follow-up, mother's prior lifetime experience of physical violence significantly undermined child growth in terms of weight-for-age, and older age at marriage and high mobility of mothers predicted less stunting in their children. In addition to the known investments needed to reduce undernutrition, improving women's nutrition, promoting gender equality, empowering women, and ending violence against women could further reduce the prevalence of undernutrition in this segment of the Indian population.
Topic:
Gender Issues and Health
Political Geography:
India and Asia

15. Seasonal Migration and Early Childhood Development

Author:
Karen Macours and Renos Vakis
Publication Date:
04-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper provides unique evidence of the positive consequences of seasonal migration for investments in early childhood development. We analyse migration in a poor shockprone border region in rural Nicaragua where it offers one of the main household income diversification and risk coping strategies. IV estimates show, somewhat surprisingly, that mother's migration has a positive effect on early cognitive development. We attribute these findings to changes in income and to the intrahousehold empowerment gains resulting from mother's migration, which offset potential negative ECD effects from temporary lack of parenting. This paper, hence, illustrates how increased opportunities in seasonal migration due to higher South–South mobility might positively affect early childhood development and as such long term poverty reduction.
Topic:
Health, Migration, and Poverty
Political Geography:
Nicaragua

16. The Determinants of Child Weight and Height in Sri Lanka: A Quantile Regression Approach

Author:
Harsha Aturupane, Anil B. Deolalikar, and Dileni Gunewardena
Publication Date:
05-2008
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Reducing child malnutrition is a key goal of most developing countries. To combat child malnutrition with the right set of interventions, policymakers need to have a better understanding of its economic, social and policy determinants. While there is a large literature that investigates the determinants of child malnutrition, it focuses almost exclusively on mean effects of these determinants. However, socioeconomic background variables and policy interventions may affect child nutrition differently at different points of the conditional nutritional distribution. Using quantile regressions, this paper explores the effect s of variables such as a child's age, sex and birth order; household expenditure per capita; parental schooling; and infrastructure on child weight and height at different points of the conditional distributions of weight and height using data from Sri Lanka's Demographic and Health Survey. Results indicate that OLS estimates can be misleading in predicting the effects of determinants at the lower end of the distributions of weight and height. For example, even though on average Sri Lankan girls are not nutritionally-disadvantaged relative to boys, among children at the highest risk of malnutrition girls are disadvantaged relative to boys. Likewise, although expenditure per capita is associated with strong nutritional improvement on average, it is not a significant determinant of child height or weight at the lower end of the distribution. Similarly, parental education, electricity access, and the availability of piped water have larger effect son child weight and height at the upper quantiles than at the lower quantiles. The policy implication is that general interventions—parental schooling, infrastructure and income growth—are not as effective for children in the lower tail of the conditional weight and height distributions. These children, who are at the highest risk of malnutrition, are likely to need specialized nutritional interventions.
Topic:
Development, Education, and Health
Political Geography:
Asia and Sri Lanka

17. Rehabilitating Health Systems in Post-Conflict Situations

Author:
Gilbert Burnham, Brinnon Garrett, and Hugh Waters
Publication Date:
01-2007
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Although baseline data for post-conflict situations are frequently unavailable, there is a clear deterioration in the health conditions of populations during and following conflict. Excess mortality and morbidity, displaced populations, and vulnerability to communicable diseases during and following conflict all call for immediate relief and restoration of basic services. As much as possible, short-term relief and assistance programmes should be implemented in a manner compatible with longer term health system rehabilitation.
Topic:
Conflict Resolution, Development, Health, and War

18. International Mobility of Health Professionals: Brain Drain or Brain Exchange?

Author:
Stephen Bach
Publication Date:
08-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
The consequences of health professional mobility have become a prominent public policy concern. This paper considers trends in mobility amongst doctors and nurses and the consequences for health systems. Policy responses are shifting from a reactive agenda that focuses on stemming migration towards a more active agenda of managed migration that benefits source and destination countries. Improved working conditions and effective human resource practice are required to encourage retention of health professionals in both source and destination countries.
Topic:
International Relations, Health, Human Welfare, and Migration

19. National Food Policies Impacting on Food Security: The Experience of India, a Large Populated Country

Author:
S.S. Acharya
Publication Date:
07-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
India accounts for 16.7 per cent of the world's food consumers. With the exception of China, India's size in terms of food consumers is many times larger than the average size of the rest of the countries. At the time of independence in 1947, India was in the grip of a serious food crisis, which was accentuated by the partition of the country. The demand for food far exceeded supply, food prices were high and more than half of the population living below the poverty line with inadequate purchasing power. With high rates of population growth, the dependence on imported food increased further. However, the situation improved considerably after the mid-1960s, when new agricultural development strategy and food policies were adopted. The production of staple cereals increased substantially, mainly contributed by productivity improvements. The dependence on food imports decreased and the country became a marginal net exporter of cereals. There was also an improvement in physical and economic access of households to cereals and other nutritive food products. The proportion of households reporting hunger went down and the incidence of economic poverty reduced. This paper reviews the Indian approach to tackling the severe problem of food insecurity, which India faced immediately after independence. It reviews the evolution of food policy, the major policy instruments deployed, intervention in food marketing system, and the current status of food security/insecurity. The paper also identifies the lessons emerging from the experience of India. In developing countries characterized by large segments of the rural population dependent on food production for livelihood and by the high incidence of poverty, food insecurity and malnutrition, the strategy to improve food security must encompass programmes to increase food production that combine improved technology transfer, price support to food producers and supply of inputs at reasonable prices to farmers, improvements in food marketing system, employment generation, direct food assistance programmes, and improvement in the access to education and primary health care.
Topic:
Health and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia

20. Investing in Health for Economic Development: The Case of Mexico

Author:
Nora Lustig
Publication Date:
03-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Health is an asset with an intrinsic value as well as an instrumental value. Good health is a source of wellbeing and highly valued throughout the world. Health is not only the absence of illness, but capacity to develop a person's potential. Health is also an important determinant of economic growth. Given the importance of health, both as a source of human welfare and a determinant of overall economic growth, the Popular Health Insurance (Seguro Popular) was first introduced in Mexico as a pilot programme by the federal government in 2001, becoming part of the formal legislation in 2003. This study looks at the current situation, and some of the early findings and improvements made so far with regard to public health coverage in Mexico.
Topic:
Development, Economics, and Health
Political Geography:
Central America and Mexico

21. A Wider Approach to Aid Effectiveness: Correlated Impacts on Health, Wealth, Fertility and Education

Author:
Mark McGillivray, Sebastian Torres, and David Fielding
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
In this paper we discuss the results of research into the impact of foreign aid on human development. Rather than focussing on per capita income, as is common in the existing literature, we look at how aid impacts on a range of human development indicators, including measures, of health, education and fertility, and allow for the fact that these different dimensions of wellbeing are likely to interact with each other. Overall, aid is found to have a substantial positive impact on many development outcome.
Topic:
Development, Economics, Health, and Humanitarian Aid

22. Health Improvements and Health Inequality during the Last 40 Years

Author:
Giovanni Andrea Cornia and Leonardo Menchini
Publication Date:
02-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This paper juxtaposes changes over the last forty years in income growth and distribution with the mortality changes recorded at the aggregate level in about 170 countries and at the individual level in 26 countries with at least two demographic and health surveys covering the last twenty years. Over the 1980s and 1990s, the infant mortality rate, under-5 mortality rate, and life expectancy at birth mostly continued the favourable trends that characterized the 1960s and 1970s. Yet, especially in the 1990s, the pace of health improvement was slower than that recorded during the prior decades. In addition, the distribution between countries of aggregate health improvements became markedly more skewed. These trends are in part explained by the negative changes recorded in sub-Saharan Africa and Eastern Europe, but are robust to the removal of the two regions from the sample. This tendency is observed also at the intraregional level, with the exception of Western Europe. Thirdly, demographic and health survey data for 26 developing countries point to a frequent divergence over time in the within-country distribution of gains in the infant mortality and under-5 mortality rates among children living in urban versus rural areas and belonging to families part of different quantiles of the asset distribution. The paper concludes by underscoring the similarities and linkages between changes in income inequality and health inequality and suggests some tentative explanations of these trends without, however, formally testing them.
Topic:
Development, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
Europe and Eastern Europe

23. Millennium Development Goal 7: An Assessment of Progress With Respect to Water and Sanitation: Legacy, Synergy, Complacency or Policy?

Author:
P.B. Anand
Publication Date:
01-2006
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
Access to water and sanitation (target 10) is an important ingredient of quality of life. As per WHO-UNICEF assessments, globally, 77 per cent of population had access to water in 1990. This proportion has increase d to 83 per cent in 2002, thus, on track to achieve the target of halving the proportion of population without safe access by 2015. However, there is considerable regional disparity in progress which remains significantly low in many countries in sub- Saharan Africa. Also, the question remains whether increased access is same as sustainable access. In 2002, some 2.6 billion people worldwide did not have access to safe sanitation options. Of these, nearly 2 billion were in the rural areas. While in almost all countries, the proportion of people having access to improved sanitation in 2002 has increased compared to the status in 1990, in 27 countries including India, Ne pal, Lao PDR, Namibia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Yemen, two out of three people did not have access to improved sanitation in 2002.
Topic:
Development, Health, and Human Welfare
Political Geography:
India, Yemen, Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Namibia

24. Regulating Bioprospecting: Institutions for Drug Research, Access and Benefit-Sharing

Author:
Padmashree Gehl Sampath
Publication Date:
04-2005
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
United Nations University
Abstract:
This policy brief summarizes the main arguments and conclusions of a forthcoming book by United Nations University Press, which examines the regulation of bioprospecting for drug research from an interdisciplinary law and economics perspective. Bioprospecting was once touted as a promising opportunity for collaborative ventures in biotechnology-based research and development (R) between the genetic resources-rich South and the technology-rich North, especially in the case of drug research. However this promise has yet to materialize. Understanding why this is so is a central policy question for countries in the South that wish to leverage their biodiversity endowments in the development process.
Topic:
Development, Environment, Health, and Science and Technology