A Note from our CEO, Kanika Bahl

While the pandemic continues to significantly affect lives across the globe, in recent weeks we have seen important health programs again gearing up. After a year in which less acute health challenges took a backseat, our nimble support is now helping governments restart deworming across our Deworm the World geographies.

• In Kenya, over 2.8 million children were targeted for deworming across 7 counties in early March. Please read more here about how we undertook, in partnership with the government, the shortest timelines ever for program implementation while adapting to COVID constraints. 
• In Nigeria, Rivers State held deworming in January targeting over 1.36 million children, restarting that program after schools reopened. We are now busy planning for the first deworming round later this year in Lagos, targeting 1.2 million children across Nigeria’s largest city - a challenging urban environment. 

These successes come amidst prolonged school closures in many countries. These undermine both learning and delivery of school health programs such as deworming. In Pakistan deworming was postponed due to reinstated school closures after COVID cases rose. Despite this we are working hard to reach full scale in 2021 across all of Pakistan’s provinces and territories in need of deworming, and are preparing to support implementation once schools reopen. 

The commitment of our government partners, amidst myriad challenges and competing priorities, continues to astound me. Together, we will ensure that millions of children receive the treatment they need. 

We are grateful for your continued support of Evidence Action, which enables our unwavering commitment to these programs and their impact. Thank you!

Best,

From Our Blog

Bringing back school-based deworming to Kenya during COVID-19 
This March, our Deworm the World Initiative team in Kenya accomplished an extraordinary feat: they successfully supported the government of Kenya in implementing a large-scale school-based deworming round--which normally takes over two months of planning and coordination--in just three weeks, targeting 2.8 million children.

The Evidence to Policy Pipeline: How Open Policy Analysis Can Transform Deworming Policy
Researchers at the Center for Effective Global Action pioneered a tool called Open Policy Analysis (OPA) that combines evidence and real-world implementation data to improve transparency and better equip policymakers in their decision-making. In partnership with our Deworm the World Initiative, one of OPA’s first applications is school-based deworming, which we will use to help evaluate the actual or potential impacts of deworming, and for advocacy with our government partners. 

Newsworthy

The Center for Global Development explores the increasing demand for innovative ways to address development challenges, and mentions our dispensers as an example of an innovation that reaches millions and measures its impact with high-quality data.

The News International published this opinion piece which stresses the importance of deworming, and highlights how our Deworm the World Initiative is assisting the Government of Pakistan in tackling the issue of parasitic worms within the country.

Action-able

We are constantly impressed and grateful for the creative ways in which people support Evidence Action. This month, we wanted to highlight the unique method that a team of researchers at the University of Massachusetts Medical School used to raise awareness and funds for our deworming program in March.

In the spirit of March Madness, STAT News launched STAT Madness, a bracket-style competition to find the most influential papers in biomedical research. The UMass research team submitted a paper seeking to develop an inexpensive, scalable, and safe new drug to prevent parasitic worms. To raise awareness about the magnitude and severity of parasitic worms around the world, they also created an online fundraiser for our Deworm the World Initiative, so that every time the paper advanced to the next round, the team would donate to our program. They definitely had our vote!

Want to create a fundraiser of your own? Platforms like Facebook and GoFundMe are very effective. Feel free to refer to the brochures located on our Get Involved page to find compelling language about what we do and why we do it. 

Work for Impact

Staff Spotlight

Richard Kibuuka, Country Manager
Uganda



Richard Kibuuka has been working for our Dispensers for Safe Water program for more than half a decade. Listen to him explain how the program works, the impacts it’s having, what makes our organization unique, and why he loves working for Evidence Action. 

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