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Background
Participants of the
1999 Core Course display the outcomes of small group collaboration
with Senior Population Advisor of the World Bank, Tom Merrick |
The world is more
diverse today in terms of demographic and epidemiological conditions than it
was 30 years ago when the development community began working on population
issues. While many countries have succeeded in slowing population growth,
others still face large absolute and relative increases in numbers which
threaten to undermine their efforts at economic and social development. One
legacy of high population growth rates in the past is the young age
distribution and high dependency rates in many poor countries. Another is
the wide differential in birth and death rates as the fertility and health
transitions proceed at different speeds within the same country. Both
legacies contribute to inequity by social class, gender and geographical
area that effective human development policies must address.
The World Bank,
borrower countries, and the donor community have begun to work to implement
agreements made at the 1994 International Conference on Population and
Development (ICPD) to broaden the scope of population policies and programs
to address a wider range of reproductive health and human development goals.
While many countries and donors have made policy commitments to the ICPD
Program of Action, all face major obstacles in implementation. A key barrier
is the limited knowledge and technical expertise both for (1) addressing the
changing demographic and epidemiological conditions in poor countries, and
(2) designing and delivering comprehensive packages of reproductive health
services. Poor countries face severe financial and organizational
constraints in all the social sectors, including health. In the past, donor
support emphasized the importance of technical and managerial skills for the
promotion of per capita income growth. With the new focus on human
development, many are addressing these constraints through health reform
strategies such as instituting new organizational and financing arrangements
for health care, changing public and private roles, and improving overall
quality and accountability in the health system. Often, in the course of
these reforms in the health sector in particular, reproductive health issues
are neglected despite the firm worldwide commitment to their promotion.
To this end, the
World Bank Institute (WBI) is developing an intensive, innovative learning
program as a service to client countries. WBI is relying strongly on
collaboration with donors and regional partner institutes to identify and
develop appropriate learning materials, to identify expert resource persons
and trainers, and to help co-finance its programs. The Adapting to Change
Team is mobilizing its expertise to provide training in best practices and
lessons learned about the "what" and the "how" to
implement more efficient, equitable and financially sustainable population
and reproductive health programs.
Why
is the World Bank Taking the Lead for this Learning
Program?
The Banks
comparative advantage in this area is believed to lie in its strong inter-sectoral
approach to development, its involvement in program design as well as
implementation in many countries of the world, its access to finance and
planning officials as well as those from the health ministries and other
related sectors (education, womens affairs, social security, and so on),
its expertise in the area of costing, sustainable financing, and
public-private collaboration, and its strong motivation to work effectively
with other multilateral and bilateral donors in this field. With its dual
mandate in training for staff and clients alike, WBI is well situated to
deliver this comprehensive program whereby client and task manager, together
with other key actors in the field (NGOs, donors, etc.) may work
side-by-side to understand the crucial issues and translate them into
effective and sustainable action.
Target
Audiences
The target
audiences for the learning program include public and private sector
professionals involved in the financing, planning, implementation and
evaluation of reproductive health and family planning services in Bank
client countries. It will also be offered to staff members from the Bank and
other donor agencies who are working with countries to implement the
reproductive health approach called for in the ICPD Program of Action. Joint
training of participants from client countries and the Bank and other donor
agencies staff is expected to contribute to shared learning as well as a
common language and understanding of the issues and options involved.
By undertaking
joint training of participants from client countries, the Bank and other
donor agencies, the course is expected to contribute to shared learning as
well as development of a common language and understanding of the issues and
options involved. Collaborative arrangements in the selection of the country
teams will ensure that the teams are comprised of participants who are
believed to be effective agents of change, well-placed to put their new
knowledge and skills to practical use.
Learning
Objectives
The objective
of the program is to improve the population and reproductive health outcomes
of populations in developing countries through: (1) providing participants
with an understanding the changing national and international policy and
program environment for their work in population and reproductive health;
(2) equipping participants with the tools they will need to design and
deliver an effective and affordable package of reproductive health services
in their countries; and (3) informing participants working in national
health systems about the pressures for reform, indicating ways in which key
reform initiatives can be exploited to produce a policy environment in which
more effective, comprehensive and affordable reproductive health services
are provided to all.
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