The INFO Project Blog

On the Washington Metro this morning, on my way to get input on INFO’s blog from fellow members of the Health Information and Publications Network, I read a great new paper on Web 2.0 and International Development by Alberto Masetti-Zannini.

In discussing blogging’s potential for the political empowerment of global citizens, Zannini referred to Global Voices Online, a project of Harvard Law School’s Berkman Center for Internet & Society. A nonprofit media project that aggregates, curates and amplifies blogger’s voices from low and middle income countries, the site, writes Zannini, is “arguably the most important online aggregator of blogs from the developing world.” Voices, he writes,

shine[s] light on places and people other media often ignore. Global Voices translates blogs from all over the world in Bangla, Chinese, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Russian… [it] aims to call attention to the most interesting online conversations happening around the world, to facilitate the emergence of new citizens’ voices

According to Zannini, in a recent survey of NGOs using blogging as a tool, just 4% said they had accessed Global Voices Online.

Change that by listening in here.

The TRIP Database, from the UK, is one of the web’s leading resources for Evidence-Based Medicine. Users can search three separate databases:

• Evidence Based Medicine
• Patient Information Leaflets
• Medical images

A search on “contraceptive implants” returns over 600 items, which the user can filter by clicking on “Systematic Reviews” or “Guidelines” (sorted by region) or “Clinical Questions.”

The same search done under “Patient Information Leaflets” brings back examples from the UK, US, and Australia. There is also a TRIP Blog and a feature which allows registered users to customize their TRIP home page.

For more information on contraceptive implants, check out the following resources: INFO’s new Implants Toolkit A new issue of Population Reports on implants An INFO Report with tools for providers, and… Our One Source search on implants

We can’t stop watching this Telugu condom promo, from Nrityanjali Academy in India’s Andhra Pradesh. It was among YouTube’s highest rated clips.

The new site, called MDG Monitor, was just developed by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), Relief Web  and UNICEF to be a one-stop-shop for information on progress towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), globally and at the country level. It is designed for policymakers, journalists, students and people like us who are working in development. 

	Those of us working in reproductive health are most interested in goal #5 - Improve Maternal Health
	and goal #6 - Combat HIV/AIDS, Malaria and other Diseases.

You can browse by goal or by location and view maps of the entire world or individual countries.  If you have a high bandwidth connection to the Web, you can also download Google Earth (about 13 MB) and view the entire site through Google Earth.

Speaking of maternal health, if you’d like to track new research coming out about maternal health, search INFO’s One Source database on this topic.   

World AIDS Day is approaching and the need for clear, widely-disseminated and evidence-based information about the disease is more crucial than ever.

More than 40 percent of responders from nine countries did not understand that AIDS is always fatal, according to a new poll by the MAC AIDS Fund, as recently reported on Reuters Health news:

The survey from the MAC AIDS Fund, a philanthropy set up by Estee Lauder-owned MAC cosmetics, involved 4,510 interviews conducted in the US, UK, Russia, France, China, India, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa. The release of the findings coincides with a Fund board meeting and comes in advance of World AIDS Day on December 1.

According to the Reuters article, 50 percent of respondents said they thought most people with HIV are getting treatment, while the number is more like one in five.

Stigma across the nine countries revealed another cost of ignorance about the disease: nearly half of respondents said they felt uncomfortable walking next to someone with HIV.

The MAC AIDS Fund is supported by the sale of cosmetics including Viva Glam VI lipstick, as modeled here by hip hop icon Eve.

Posted by Rose Reis, Program Specialist