scholarly journals Introducing Basic Social Protection in Low-Income Countries: Lessons from Existing Programmes

2009 ◽  
pp. 253-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Armando Barrientos
2018 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 225-245 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell Peprah Opoku ◽  
William Nketsia ◽  
Elvis Agyei-Okyere ◽  
Wisdom Kwadwo Mprah

In many low-income countries, persons with disabilities are consistently denied access to essential services, contributing to a high incidence of poverty among them. The Goal 1 of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) exhorts countries to develop appropriate social protection to serve as a springboard to alleviate poverty among all persons. The government of Ghana has introduced Disability Fund to provide one-off financial support to persons with disabilities through its decentralised political units. This is to enable persons with disability to participate in socio-economic activities. However, after a decade of the establishment of the fund, anecdotal evidence still shows that many persons with disabilities continue to live in deplorable conditions. Therefore, the main aim of this qualitative study was to explore the beneficial impact of the fund on the lives of persons with disabilities in Ghana. A semi-structured interview guide was used to collect data from 48 participants, comprising 20 males and 28 females with disabilities. The narratives from the participants revealed that only a few were able to access the fund. In their quest to access the fund, participants encountered barriers, such as lack of information, delays in disbursement and insufficient funds. The findings underscore the need for re-evaluation of the administration of Disability Fund and its disbursement processes. The implications of the findings for policy reform are extensively discussed.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niccolò Riccardi ◽  
Simone Villa ◽  
Andrea Giacomelli ◽  
Mama M Diaw ◽  
Mamoud Ndiaye ◽  
...  

Background: Tuberculosis (TB) unevenly affects individuals across the globe, especially in rural areas of low-income countries. Aim of the study was to assess the impact of social protection to increase TB awareness on treatment outcomes among TB patients in a rural area of Senegal. Materials & methods: The study, conducted in Fimela district (Senegal) from 1 January 2010 to 31 December 2019 and the intervention started from 31 January 2013, includes activities to increase awareness, active case finding, active follow-up and social protection. Results: Overall, 435 subjects – mainly male and young – were included in the analysis. Among TB cases, 94% had pulmonary involvement, 87% had no previous TB history, and 6% resulted positive HIV. Improved outcome was observed once intervention began (from 71 to 91%, p < 0.001); whereas mortality decreased (from 15 to 5%; p < 0.001), especially for those HIV co-infected for whom TB mortality rate dropped from 70 to 29%. Conclusion: After beginning the cooperation program, TB treatment success increased as a result of the decline of mortality, especially in people living with HIV.


2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (17) ◽  
pp. 3236-3240 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcos Pereira ◽  
Ana Marlucia Oliveira

AbstractThis article discusses the relationship between both poverty and food insecurity (FI) and the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as presenting possible strategies and actions for increasing social protection in the fight against these conditions in the current epidemiological context, especially for low-income countries. This is a narrative review concerning COVID-19, poverty, and food and nutritional insecurity. The COVID-19 pandemic may increase poverty and FI levels, resulting from the absence of or weak political, economic and social interventions to maintain jobs, as well as compromised food production and distribution chains and reduced access to healthy foods in different countries around the world, especially the poorest ones, where social and economic inequality was already historically high; the pandemic heightens and uncovers the vulnerability of poor populations. Public policies focused on guaranteeing the human right to adequate food must be improved and implemented for populations in contexts of poverty with the aim of providing food security.


BMJ Open ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (10) ◽  
pp. e049900
Author(s):  
Kritika Dixit ◽  
Olivia Biermann ◽  
Bhola Rai ◽  
Tara Prasad Aryal ◽  
Gokul Mishra ◽  
...  

ObjectivePsychosocial and economic (socioeconomic) barriers, including poverty, stigma and catastrophic costs, impede access to tuberculosis (TB) services in low-income countries. We aimed to characterise the socioeconomic barriers and facilitators of accessing TB services in Nepal to inform the design of a locally appropriate socioeconomic support intervention for TB-affected households.DesignFrom August 2018 to July 2019, we conducted an exploratory qualitative study consisting of semistructured focus group discussions (FGDs) with purposively selected multisectoral stakeholders. The data were managed in NVivo V.12, coded by consensus and analysed thematically.SettingThe study was conducted in four districts, Makwanpur, Chitwan, Dhanusha and Mahottari, which have a high prevalence of poverty and TB.ParticipantsSeven FGDs were conducted with 54 in-country stakeholders, grouped by stakeholders, including people with TB (n=21), community stakeholders (n=13) and multidisciplinary TB healthcare professionals (n=20) from the National TB Programme.ResultsThe perceived socioeconomic barriers to accessing TB services were: inadequate TB knowledge and advocacy; high food and transportation costs; income loss and stigma. The perceived facilitators to accessing TB care and services were: enhanced championing and awareness-raising about TB and TB services; social protection including health insurance; cash, vouchers and/or nutritional allowance to cover food and travel costs; and psychosocial support and counselling integrated with existing adherence counselling from the National TB Programme.ConclusionThese results suggest that support interventions that integrate TB education, psychosocial counselling and expand on existing cash transfer schemes would be locally appropriate and could address the socioeconomic barriers to accessing and engaging with TB services faced by TB-affected households in Nepal. The findings have been used to inform the design of a socioeconomic support intervention for TB-affected households. The acceptability, feasibility and impact of this intervention on TB-related costs, stigma and TB treatment outcomes, is now being evaluated in a pilot implementation study in Nepal.


Author(s):  
Davor Petrović ◽  
Vida Čulić ◽  
Zofia Swinderek-Alsayed

AbstractJoubert syndrome (JS) is a rare congenital, autosomal recessive disorder characterized by a distinctive brain malformation, developmental delay, ocular motor apraxia, breathing abnormalities, and high clinical and genetic heterogeneity. We are reporting three siblings with JS from consanguineous parents in Syria. Two of them had the same homozygous c.2172delA (p.Trp725Glyfs*) AHI1 mutation and the third was diagnosed prenatally with magnetic resonance imaging. This pathogenic variant is very rare and described in only a few cases in the literature. Multinational collaboration could be of benefit for the patients from undeveloped, low-income countries that have a low-quality health care system, especially for the diagnosis of rare diseases.


2013 ◽  
pp. 121-136
Author(s):  
Duong Pham Bao

The objective of this article is to review the development of the rural financial system in Vietnam in recent years, especially, after Doi moi. There are two opposite schools of thought in the literature on rural credit policies in developing countries. One is the conventional supply-side (government-led) approach while the other is called “a new paradigm” that emphasizes the importance of the viability of financial providers and the well functioning of rural credit markets. Conventional theories of rural finance contend that rural finance in low-income countries is generally accompanied by many failures. Contrary to these theories, rural finance in Vietnam does not encounter the above-mentioned failures so far. Up to the present time, it is progressing well. Using a supply-side approach, methodologically, this study reviews the development of the rural financial system in Vietnam. The significance of this study is to challenge the extreme view of dichotomizing between the old and the new credit paradigms. Analysis in this study contends that a rural financial market that, (1) is initiated and spurred by government; (2) operates principally under market mechanisms; and (3) is strongly supported by rural organizations (semi-formal/informal institutions) can progress stably and well. Therefore, the extremely dichotomizing approach must be avoided.


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