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This is an archived USAID document retained on this web site as a matter of public record.
THE PILLARS
In this section:
Vaccine Against Cattle Plague Passes Test in
Kenya
Irrigation Pumps Lift Water so Farm Income Can
Grow
Peru Improves Medical Services for Its Rural
Poor
Conflict Office Seeks To Identify Sources
of Conflict, Instability
Training Courses Help Hone Way Agency Responds
to Crises
ECONOMIC GROWTH, AGRICULTURE, AND TRADE
Vaccine Against Cattle Plague Passes Test in Kenya
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Dr. Henry Wamwayi vaccinating cattle with the recombinant
rinderpest vaccine.
University of California, Davis |
A new vaccine against cattle disease, produced with U.S.
assistance, has proved safe and effective in tests in Kenya
earlier this year, paving the way for its widespread use across
Africa and Asia.
The disease, rinderpest, which is German for “cattle
plague,” causes severe lesions in the mouth and intestines
and causes bloody diarrhea, killing as many as 95 percent
of the cattle and wildlife that contract it.
Farmers throughout Africa have lost hundreds of thousands
of animals and millions in income they would have received
from selling cattle and the milk they produce.
The new vaccine is the work of Ethiopian-American scientist
T.D. Yilma of the University of California at Davis, to whom
USAID granted $2 million over 17 years for vaccine research.
The new vaccine is generated by splicing two genes of the
rinderpest virus in a smallpox vaccine, vaccinia virus.
Safety concerns about using vaccinia virus delayed field
testing until a similar vaccine for rabies was distributed
without incident over a million square miles in Europe and
the United States.
Safety studies were conducted by the U.S. Department of
Agriculture, the National Veterinary Institute of Ethiopia,
the National Biotechnology Safety Committee, and the Kenyan
Agricultural Institute Biosafety Committee in Muguga, said
Joyce Turk, who oversees the work for USAID as senior livestock
advisor in the Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and
Trade.
A simpler vaccine against rinderpest developed many years
ago prevented the disease, but it was sensitive to heat and
light. This made it expensive and cumbersome to use in the
remote, hot desert regions of Africa.
In 1990, USAID funded a Tufts University scientist who improved
the heat stability of the old vaccine by storing it in a powder
form; however, once diluted for use it becomes heat-sensitive.
Yilma’s vaccine is cheaper, heat-stable in both dry
and liquid form, and easier to use because heat and light
exposure do not harm it.
Since it is a recombinant vaccine, scientists could in the
future splice genes from other viruses into it to provide
protection against a range of diseases affecting cattle, sheep,
and goats, Turk said.
Yilma worked closely with Senegalese, Kenyan, and Ethiopian
researchers to develop not only the vaccine, but also a test
for diagnosing rinderpest. The World Animal Health Organization
(the former Office of International Epizootics) has approved
the test for worldwide use. African laboratories can produce
it for about one cent each.
Veterinarians administering the test can tell not only if
an animal is immune to the disease, but if it is immune because
it already had the disease or was vaccinated using the recombinant
vaccine. This means vaccinated animals can be exported without
fear of spreading rinderpest virus.
Humans are not affected by this disease.
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Blood sample being taken from an animal for a serological
test.
University of California, Davis |
GLOBAL DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE
Irrigation Pumps Lift Water so Farm Income Can Grow
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Monica Lession is irrigating her nursery with an ApproTEC
Super MoneyMaker irrigation pump.
ApproTEC |
ARUSHA, Tanzania—Abedinego Lession and his wife
Monica started their business cultivating ornamental plants
and flowers at their home here about seven years ago.
For the first five years, they watered the plants by toting
buckets of water from the only source available: a communal
irrigation stream that supplies each household for two hours
per week. The work was tedious, and the Lessions were not
able to irrigate all their flowers within the allotted time.
The couple saved for six months to purchase ApproTEC’s
Super MoneyMaker irrigation pump to expand their business
and improve their income.
Today, they earn approximately $130 a month, just over twice
the amount they brought in before they purchased the pump.
“We are now able to cover all our domestic needs, our
children’s school fees, and some maintenance of our houses,”
Abedinego Lession said.
ApproTEC is a nonprofit organization based in Kenya that
develops and sells new technologies to help small entrepreneurs
in Africa grow their businesses. The Super MoneyMaker irrigation
pump sells for $90, and the smaller MoneyMaker Plus pump goes
for $45. They are marketed as a way for families to expand
beyond subsistence farming to a level that generates revenue.
The pumps transport water up to 70 feet from hand-dug wells,
rivers, streams, lakes, and ponds to nearby fields. The pumps
have a total lifting capacity of 43 feet. They can lift water
from 20 feet below the surface, pump it 23 feet, and irrigate
up to two acres of land.
After building its operations in Kenya, ApproTEC, with support
from the Global Development Alliance (GDA) and the Tanzania
mission, expanded south to Tanzania. The goal is to replicate
the Kenyan model by creating a critical mass of pump users,
suppliers, and distributors.
“We want to make the irrigation pumps as popular and
well known as other common capital equipment, such as sewing
machines and bicycles,” said ApproTEC cofounder Nick
Moon.
USAID’s $650,000 investment in the effort was matched
by private sector partners, such as the Case, Mulago, and
Nike foundations.
In Kenya and Tanzania, the ApproTEC project has helped create
some 34,000 new businesses, generating $36 million in revenues.
Steve Case, founder of the Case Foundation and the internet
provider AOL, has taken a personal interest in ApproTEC, traveling
to its headquarters in Nairobi to help its officers design
a business plan.
ApproTEC has also developed other products, such as a press
for producing cooking oil from sunflower and other hard-shelled
oilseeds, and a manual hay baler.
“Here is a novel example of private sector experience
and expertise adding value to what USAID does,” said
Dan Runde, acting director of the GDA Secretariat.
GLOBAL HEALTH
Peru Improves Medical Services for Its Rural Poor
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Giovana (last name unknown) rests with her newborn
daughter at the Alto Trujillo Health Post, which is
part of the USAID-supported network of health services.
Ben Zinner, USAID |
TRUJILLO, Peru—Giovana* gave birth to a daughter
at the Alto Trujillo Health Post here in late February, with
medical supervision and no complications. Had she given birth
a few years earlier, she would have had to do so at home,
most likely unattended.
For poor people living in this urban slum in northwest Peru,
it can be a difficult journey to the two regional hospitals.
Patients also are not properly directed to medical care, and
very sick patients might never make it to a hospital. Or people
with minor infections might take up the regional hospitals’
beds simply because they live closer to the facilities.
To get local residents access to vital medical care, USAID
is working with public health officials to create an integrated
network of health services. The network is helping regional
hospitals and clinics share resources and refer patients back
and forth. It is also increasing the coordination of investments
to reduce wasteful duplication of services.
USAID is also trying to make it easier for poor people to
access medical services by working with health officials to
improve the targeting of publicly subsidized services to those
most in need.
“Strengthening health systems in developing countries
like Peru to be more effective, efficient, and equitable is
essential for improving the health of the poor,” said
Bob Emrey, chief of the Health Systems Division of the Bureau
for Global Health.
More than half of Peruvians live in poverty. Those living
in remote areas have a particularly hard time accessing healthcare.
Public clinics like Alto Trujillo Health Post offer basic
services such as checkups, immunizations, treatment for minor
respiratory illnesses, and initial care for minor trauma.
More serious cases are now being referred systematically to
regional hospitals.
USAID is also working with Peruvian health officials on
a system that will identify how much people can pay for healthcare
services. Poor people pay little or nothing, while those who
can afford medical services are charged based on their ability
to pay.
USAID provides technical assistance to hospital management
to improve efficiency in referral networks and medical recordkeeping.
Health administrators at the local government level are
also getting training.
*Last name unknown.
DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE
Conflict Office Seeks To Identify Sources of Conflict, Instability
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This miner from Sierra Leone’s Kono district has
benefited from the Office of Conflict Management and
Mitigation’s (CMM) toolkits. These toolkits produced
by CMM highlight lessons learned and best practices
from around the world, such as those from Sierra Leone’s
Peace Diamond Alliance. The alliance improved distribution
of benefits from the diamond mining industry and restricted
access to markets for people selling illegal “conflict
diamonds” to fuel ongoing instability.
Laura Lartigue, USAID |
The two-year-old Office of Conflict Management and Mitigation
(CMM) is offering an array of tools and activities to help
staffers in missions and bureaus identify, analyze, and respond
to sources of conflict and instability.
CMM has created toolkits focusing on land, youth unemployment,
and natural resource management. Additional toolkits, slated
for release throughout 2005, will focus on gender, livelihoods,
human rights, water, forests, and local governance.
These toolkit focus areas are largely the product of mission
requests for in-depth analyses of these sectors and their
connections to violence, as well as CMM’s own research
while conducting conflict assessments and supporting projects
in the field and at USAID/Washington.
Since the toolkits were released, CMM says it has received
requests for technical field support directly from missions
and other USAID operating units.
Two recent CMM activities include those in northern Mali
and Burundi.
At USAID/Mali’s request, CMM funded an assessment of
the northern part of the country, which has been the site
of instability and Islamic extremism. The assessment team
identified sources of tension and strain, including isolated
extremist elements, widespread youth unemployment, and severely
restricted access to social services. The assessment’s
recommendations became the basis for USAID/Mali, CMM, and
others to develop a comprehensive approach to instability
and extremism.
Administrator Andrew S. Natsios forwarded the recommendations
to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a move that resulted
in additional funding for the mission’s programming by
the Bureau for Africa.
In addition, the findings led U.S. embassies throughout
the Sahel—the semiarid region of Africa between the Sahara
and the savannas to the south—to request similar assessments
in Niger, Chad, and Mauritania. A team led by CMM recently
completed a six-week mission to these countries.
CMM, which is within the Bureau for Democracy, Conflict,
and Humanitarian Assistance, also led a joint assessment team
(which included staff from the Bureau for Africa and the Bureau
for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade) to Burundi to
evaluate links between land access and conflict. The team’s
recommendations focused on two major themes:
- land and resettlement
- livelihood and food security opportunities that stimulate
economic development and reduce dependence on land
DEMOCRACY, CONFLICT, AND HUMANITARIAN ASSISTANCE: NEWS
Training Courses Help Hone Way Agency Responds to Crises
A 10-day training course run by the Bureau for Democracy,
Conflict, and Humanitarian Assistance (DCHA) in early April
taught participants from around USAID how the Agency responds
to countries in crisis or recovering from crisis.
“The course works from the beginning of a crisis through
its aftermath,” said Jenny Marion of DCHA. “It explains
how to assess, respond, and manage complex situations that
USAID staff face overseas.”
As USAID increasingly works in fragile states, DCHA is being
reorganized to build a more integrated team approach. The
bureau aims to engage and collaborate more closely with other
bureaus and offices inside and outside USAID, Marion said.
DCHA is also launching a new category of technical expertise:
the crisis, stabilization, and governance officer.
The training course was designed to educate such officers—and
other participants from outside DCHA—about operating
in crisis and recovery scenarios.
Participants heard from more than 50 speakers with vast
experience working in danger zones, such as USAID/Iraq Mission
Director Spike Stephenson. They had to create scopes of work,
analyze programs, figure out approaches, and discuss how to
employ the various assessment tools USAID offers.
Modules also included issues such as protection and vulnerable
populations, personal security, psychosocial issues, interagency
operations, and donor and other partner coordination.
In one segment, Stephenson and Agency Counselor Carol Peasley
talked about strengths and weaknesses of the trainees’
proposed approaches to helping countries in the midst of crises.
The training wrapped up with a candid dialogue on USAID’s
role and effectiveness in fragile states between participants,
Bill Garvelink, DCHA’s acting assistant administrator,
and Jim Kunder, assistant administrator for Asia and the Near
East.
Plans are underway to offer a second course in December
2005.
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