Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
15 July 2020
Post No. 152
The Week’s Contents
• Virtual Summer Festival (Seven Days of Development in July 2020) – In Focus: Health Economics
• Coming out this Summer 2020: The 68th Issue of FACS Newsletter, Issue to be Entitled as Essential Economy That Relieves Poverty in Africa
• July 2020 Data Analytics and Impact Activities
… and much more!
Key Messages
~ Virtual Summer Festival (Seven Days of Development in July 2020) – In Focus: Health Economics – How to make health economics work for the poor and neediest
Last week, we explained that this year’s Seven Days of Development in July (7DDJ) will be about further exploring the CENFACS argument that the coronavirus pandemic is both an economic and health threat. This exploration will be done through Health Economics. In other words, we are going to refer to Health Economics in order to grasp and further think about the CENFACS’ argument.
Our thoughts will focus on the way health economics can work for the poor and neediest while still having in our mind set the CENFACS argument about Covid-19.
The Festival will prolong our Campaign for Resilience against Covid-19. In this respect, if one wants to stop the negative effects of Covid-19, then they need to know what kind of threats Covid-19 has posed and will pose.
This week, we are given more information about the make-up of the 7DDJ. This extra information can be found under the Main Development section of this post.
~ Coming out this Summer 2020: The 68th Issue of FACS Newsletter, Issue to be Entitled as Essential Economy That Relieves Poverty in Africa
The following is the abstract of the 68th Issue.
Abstract of the 68th Issue –
When the coronavirus pandemic stroke many people in need in Africa and elsewhere rediscovered the true nature of the economic systems they rely upon to make their ends meet, as well as the state of their health systems. They also found how their every day’s economies were full of non-essential activities and goods that do not always help them to meet their essential life-sustaining needs.
However, for these ordinary people and in most needs what is important was not so much the rediscovery of the essentiality of their economies and the state of their health systems. But, what is in their interest was the possibility and opportunity that the rediscovered essential economy can work for them during the pandemic time and afterwards.
Following on their interest, the 68th Issue is a quest for the rehabilitation of our current organised systems for the production, distribution and consumption or use of material goods and services to bring in essentiality, particularly meaning in terms of poverty reduction and sustainable development.
The 68th Issue of FACS will deal with the reduction of poverty in Africa via essential economy. But, what is exactly essential economy?
It is the absolutely necessary and careful management of available and scarce resources that can help to solve the basic economic problem of poverty and hardships. It does it while saving expenses, time, energy, the environment and natural resources. It is indeed a revived economic paradigm which is deep-rooted in sustainable vision of development and which deals with the problem of scarce resources to be allocated to unlimited wants via essentialist approach.
Through the 68th Issue, we are going to explore ways of making essential economy as an economy that serves the poor and vulnerable people as well as the generations to come. By arguing this, it does not mean that other types of economy cannot help the poor nor the poor should solely rely on essential economy. It just means that the essential economy could be an appropriate response to poverty and hardships in Africa and elsewhere.
By centre staging essential economy in the fight against poverty, this raises some stakes on the prospects of improving this economy so that it can be not only a poverty reducer, but also a poverty finisher and a sustainable development enhancer.
Essential economy has many attributes and qualities. As J. L. Pratt (1) of Sweet Water Foundation puts it in the following terms:
“Most importantly, Essential Economy restores our connection to that which is essential in our daily lives – building, caring for others, growing food, making art, and engaging in community and culture”.
Using these qualities of the essential economy, we are going to approach poverty reduction in Africa via this perspective while acknowledging the work carried out by Africa-based Sister Organisations and local people in Africa in identifying those positive aspects of essential economy that can help them further relieve poverty and hardships.
The 68th Issue will lay down an approach to essential economy that seriously takes the needs and aspirations of those in most needs, especially in the Age of Covid-19. Although, it will not specifically treat Covid-19, it will increase our understanding of sustainable development subjects related to Covid-19 and particularly its relationships with poverty reduction.
In the light of the experience that Africa has having with the Covid-19 Outbreak, the Issue will help come out from the broad and national definition of the word economy to embrace it at the micro-economic level of charitable organisations. In doing so, the Issue will hope to provide some foundations to extirpate the poverty-relieving capability and power of this economy.
The Issue will also show that the essential economy has always been there. But, it has for long time been ignored in terms of its potentials, credentials, capacity and power to relieve poverty and change lives for a better one.
It is in the recognition of the essential economy and its poverty-relieving ability that the Issue will look at how this revived economy will score within the charitable sector in responding to poor people’s urgent and acute needs and aspirations for relief.
Without anticipating the contents of the articles and other materials that will make the 68th Issue, let us simply conclude that the essential economy is the economy of everybody, the economy that does not leave anyone behind.
The above is a brief statement of the main points that will shape the 68th Issue of FACS. For any enquiry or query about the above statement and the entire Issue, please do not hesitate to contact CENFACS.
(1) Jia Lok Pratt (2020), It’s Time for the Essential Economy, Sweet Water Foundation, Chicago, USA (https://www.sweetwaterfoundation.com/stories/2020/4/2/welcome-to-the-essential-economy – Accessed 08/07/2020)
~ July 2020 Data Analytics and Impact Activities
Our work on User-generated Analytics Data which started last 8 July 2020 continues this week. While we are doing it, we have started Covid-19 Data Gatherings. Both User-generated Analytics Data and Covid-19 Data Gatherings are part and parcel of our July 2020 Data Analytics and Impact Activities as scheduled for this month.
Additionally, we are carried on our Impact Activities which include the following: Impact Monitoring and Evaluation of 2019-2020 Programmes and Projects, Impact Assessment of Covid-19 on CENFACS and Impact Feedback of XX236.3F Programme. As said earlier, these activities are supposed to be running throughout the whole July 2020.
For any query and or enquiry regarding the progress about both the Data Analytics and Impact Activities, please contact CENFACS on this website.
Extra Messages
~ Impact Monitoring and Evaluation of 2019-2020 Humanitarian Appeals for Africa
As most of you know, analytics is a forward and backward process. While some of you are feeding us with analytics information, we are as well processing the information we have already received and interpreting data we previously collected and throughout the 2019-2020 financial year.
As part of this forward and backward process, we are working on humanitarian appeals we made for and on behalf of Africa during the above stated financial year. The appeals are amongst programmes and projects making our All-in-one Impact Feedback II and which we have asked Africa-based Sister Organisations (ASOs) to give their Voices or Opinions. They are as follows:
√ The DRC Happiness Appeal
√ Support for Children of Conflict and Climate Change-affected Areas in Africa in the New (September 2019) School Year
√ The 3-Frontier Area Appeal to Support the Victims of Insecurity and Displaced Persons in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger
√ Burkina Faso Appeal 2020: Bringing and Lighting a Blaze of Hope for the Victims of Armed Attacks in Burkina Faso and its Neighbourhood
√ Halving Poverty for and with the Congolese Children
√ Burkina Faso Appeal (February 2020) for the Support of Human Protection and Humanitarian Relief
√ Coronavirus Spring Project
√ Distress-free Life from Coronavirus for Children, Young People and Families in Africa
Giving opinions or comments on them will help very much in this forward and backward process of Analytics. For those ASOs that would like to be heard regarding the above appeals, please do not hesitate to contact CENFACS with your Voices.
For further information about this Impact Monitoring and Evaluation of 2019-2020 Humanitarian Appeals for Africa, please contact CENFACS.
~ Covid-19 Secure Summer SHOPPING and DONATIONS at http://cenfacs.org.uk/shop/
Every occasion or season is an opportunity to do something against poverty and hardships. Summer, which is a Happiness season at CENFACS, is a marvellous time to spread a little extra happiness to those who do not have. Amongst them are all those sufferers of the severe consequences of the coronavirus pandemic.
You can give your unwanted and unneeded goods to CENFACS’ Charity e-Store, the shop built to help relieve poverty. You can buy second hand goods and bargain priced new items and much more.
CENFACS’ Charity e-Store needs your support for Summer SHOPPING and DONATIONS.
As you told you in our previous communications, we have gone out of our way an extra mile by taking exceptional precautions to keep your SHOPPING and DONATIONS SAFE and Covid-19 COMPLIANT.
You can do something different this Summer Season by SHOPPING or DONATING GOODS at CENFACS Charity e-Store.
You can make this Summer to be of Healthiness for the Covid-19 and lockdown sufferers.
You can DONATE or SHOP or do both:
√ DONATE unwanted GOODS and PRODUCTS to CENFACS Charity e-Store during the summertime and or any time of the year
√ SHOP at CENFACS Charity e-Store to support good and deserving causes of poverty relief during the Summer and lockdown period.
Your SHOPPING and or GOODS DONATIONS will help to shine the lives of those living in poverty with happiness and healthiness.
~ All-in-one Impact Feedback: Only Two Weeks to Go!
We only have two weeks left for our Analytics month. We are for the second time appealing to you to tell us in your own words and numbers your perceptions, feelings and experiences about the programmes and projects we ran in the last 345 days preceding the beginning of July 2020.
Although we have selected 12 initiatives for All-in-one Impact Feedback One and 9 ones for Feedback Two, we are not expecting people and organisations to provide feedback on all of them. People or organisations can only feedback on the project(s) and programme(s) they benefited from, they supported, they recommended users to us or interacted within.
For the effectiveness and efficiency of this feedback exercise, we suggested ONLY select 1 or 2 initiatives for your feedback.
Please feel free to say what you experienced.
Thank you for your experiential support!
Main Development
Virtual Summer Festival (Seven Days of Development in July 2020) – In Focus for this Year: Health Economics – How to make health economics work for the poor and neediest
Welcome to the Seven Days of Development in July 2020 Festival,
CENFACS’ Summer Festival of Thoughts and Actions on Poverty Relief and Sustainable Development!
This year’s event feature is Health Economics
THINK ♦ ACT ♦ SHARE ♦ ADD VALUE ♦ SPREAD
Before speaking about the make-up of the Virtual Summer Festival, let us briefly re-introduce it and make some clarifications.
• Brief Re-introduction and Clarification
Our Festival is about the following key elements: applied health economics, the poor and neediest. In this respect, we are going to think on how poor people make decisions about healthcare and use it.
Although we will be referring to the theoretical elements of health economics in the presentation of our Summer Festival, our approach in planning this festival is based on applied economics of health in decision making process. Health economics as a science will be approached in practice, particularly in terms of how it can work for the poor and neediest.
From the above perspective, our days of thoughts and actions will take into account the application of health economics in terms of the cost-effectiveness of healthcare provision to the poor. We would like to anticipate some productive thoughts about economic evaluation of healthcare services for the poor and neediest in terms of inputs and outcomes.
Because we are talking about economics, we also expect that they will be some contributions in the form of the increase in the health benefits to the poor population, population that is normally served from a limited amount of scarce healthcare resources.
The Festival will indeed be about how to allocate limited health resources in order to meet poor people’s demand for and need of healthcare services.
Finally, there will be some thinking about how to get positive health outcomes amongst the poor and neediest under the Covid-19 and income constraints.
Having said that let us look at the make-up the Festival.
• Event Guide & Programme
• • 7DDJ Registration: FREE!
The entry to the 7DDJ2020 is FREE.
For those who are busy and who can remotely and directly respond to the daily themes from their technological devices (e.g. laptop, desktop PC, tablet, phone, etc.) without having to attend any online sessions, there is no need to register.
For those who will have the opportunity to join our online sessions (or video conference), they may be notified about the days and times these sessions may happen. They will need to sign into their Google accounts to join if everything remains the same.
• • Daily Themes
Daily Themes (DTs) provide a daily opening thought or starting point of the broad topic/issue of Health Economics. Each DT will last all day and the only day it is planned.
• • Responses to 7DDJ Contributors
Each respondent will receive a reply to their contribution in the form of either an acknowledgement of their participation or a reaction expressed as an argument to their responses or even both. Also, they will be entitled to receive the summary report on this annual event.
• • Lead Thoughts
Lead thoughts are a general idea on the thought of the day. There are designed to lead to or generate more thoughts, potential research paths or investigative grounds that can be further explored to shade some lights to our Summer Thoughts. They are not an end for themselves.
MAKE YOUR IDEAS AND COMMENTS COUNT!
• • Daily Contents
Day 1: Understanding of Health Economics
The theories of production, efficiency, disparities, competition and regulation in helping us to understand the cost-effectiveness of health resources for the benefits of the poor
Lead thought: Day 1 will be about understanding health economic theories and models, and how they can help us to think about the argument that Covid-19 is both an economic and health threat for the poor.
(For example, how one can apply specific economic theories to explain the presumed economic and health threats Covid-19 is posing or one may argue Covid-19 is just an exception to the general theory in the explanation of potential threats)
Day 2: Argument formulation
CENFACS’ Argument is that Covid-19 is both an economic and health threat
Lead thought: The examination of the formulation of the argument about the coronavirus pandemic that it is both an economic and health threat.
(For example, some thoughts will revolve around the meaning of economic and health threats and ways of diminishing them. Other thoughts could be about a comparative analysis of similar threats from an historical perspective)
Day 3: Evidence gathering
Accessing information, knowledge, facts and data institutions about the economic and health impacts and effects of Covid-19 to help build patterns in data collected as well as a reliable data bank and evidence
Lead thought: There is a need to collect enough evidence in terms of data in order to support or refute the above argument.
(For example, those who have data about Covid-19 in terms of its economic and health effects, they can use this 3rd Day of the Festival to provide or publicise those data to stimulate further thoughts to the Festival)
Day 4: Argument testing
Modalities and conditions of the workability of Covid-19 being a threat
Lead thought: From what is known so far about Covid-19, it is possible to accept, modify and refute the argument that Covid-19 is both an economic and health threat.
(For example, those who have done some studies on Covid-19 can choose this 4th Day of Festival to disseminate the findings of the research work to the Festival)
Day 5: Healthcare policies and poverty
Promotion, protection and improvement of the health of the poor through better policies
Lead thought: Tackling policies that affect the health of the poor disproportionately in some areas like sanitation, education, housing, water, nutrition, etc. can help reduce the unknown effects of potential diseases, epidemics and viruses like Covid-19.
(For example, those who have applied healthcare policies in the context of poverty reduction can find the opportunity of this 5th Day of the Festival to share their experiences in the areas of healthcare policies and poverty)
Day 6: Relation between health economics and poverty reduction
The allocation of limited health resources to meet poor people’s demand for and need of healthcare services
Lead thought: Health economics as that part of economics dealing with aspects of health may or may not have some relations with poverty reduction.
(For example, those who worked in healthcare decision making process can intervene on the 6th Day of the Festival by telling us how decision making process can improve the allocation in healthcare resources to the poor and neediest in different places like in Africa)
Day 7: Effects of trade in health services
The effects of trade in health services are not neutral on the health and well-being of the poor
Lead thought: It is possible to mitigate the adverse effects of trade in health services on the health of the poor and neediest in Africa
(For example, one may look back the effects of lockdown on the trade in health services and see if Covid-19 has trade creation or diversion amongst countries and people. One can as well look at the impacts of money remittance services to the poor if the later could not access local health services because of the effects of Covid-19 and lockdown on money remitters).
• Supporting the 7DDJ2020 event
• • 7 Ways of Supporting 7DDJ2020
You could
√ Directly forward your thoughts, comments and views on any themes and topics of the event
√ Pass the message onto interested persons
√ Feedback on previous 7DDJF events
√ Promote the event around you and/or by using other means available to you and at your convenience
√ Help us re-cover the expenses of the event specifically and/or the running cost of CENFACS’ work generally
√ Regularly support CENFACS to enable us to continue our work
√ Support our new initiative about Health Economics for the Poor
• • 7 Ways of Proceeding with your Wish
Please choose below the kind of support you want to provide and let us know
√ Promote the event
√ Feedback CENFACS on previous events
√ Spread the news about the event
√ Help in the recovery of 7DDJ 2020 expenses
√ Fund CENFACS for its deserving work
√ Provide helpful and supportive comments/views
√ Support CENFACS in your own way
Please mail your intent to support and or support to CENFACS
Closing date for reply: 05/08/2020
Please read the above event supporting information and mail us your comments and views (on the themes of your interest) to facs@cenfacs.org.uk
Thank you for your continued support.
With best wishes and full of inspiration and creativity throughout our dedicated days of Festival of Thoughts and Actions on: Health Economics – How to make it work for the poor and neediest
The 7DDJ2020 Events Team
Help CENFACS keep the Poverty Relief work going in 2020.
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One could consider a recurring donation to CENFACS in the furture.
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Thank you for visiting CENFACS website and reading this post.
Thank you as well to those who made or make comments about our weekly posts.
We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support throughout 2020 and beyond.
With many thanks.
