E-learning course: Health Outcomes and the Poor
-----------------------------------------------
Duration and
Course Load: 6 Weeks - 8 hours per week
Dates: 3 March - 11 April 2003
Participants: (Health) Professionals involved in the Pov-
erty Reduction Strategy Papers process ei-
ther as PRSP authors or as advisors to the
government
Regions Targeted: Anglophone Africa and South and East Asia
Course Fee: Introductory US$ 500 for the pilot course
Organizer: The World Bank
Language: English only
General Course Contact: Jo Hindriks, Tel.: +1-202-473-6425
mailto:jhindriks@worldbank.org
Call for Nominations
Since the launch of the Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper process (In-
ternational Monetary Fund 1999 and World Bank 2000), many countries
have taken on the challenge of centring their development agenda
around poverty reduction and have engaged in consultative and ana-
lytical work to support policy development. To date, more than 40
countries have developed and published Interim Poverty Reduction
Strategy Papers (I-PRSPs), and more than 20 countries have produced
full PRSPs.
One of the main features of the PRSP process is an emphasis on coun-
try leadership and ownership. This means that there is no set tem-
plate or framework for countries to follow. Moreover, there is no
guarantee that health would even be addressed in each PRSP as the de-
cision on which sectors to include is entirely up to the authors
(typically the government). The absence of an imposed structure or
format by the International Financial Institutions increases the
likelihood of country ownership and that the strategies identified
address the real needs of each country and may lead to more individu-
alized and creative approaches.
Since there are no set guidelines or rules to write PRSPs there is
clearly an advantage in learning from past attempts at writing them.
The course is intended to fill a need for training on what some of
the options are for writing the health component of the "Poverty Re-
duction Strategy Papers". The key question is: "What is the basic re-
lationship between poverty and Health, Nutrition and Population (HNP)
and how do they influence each other?" This course is intended to
provide the tools for PRSP authors and reviewers focusing on Health,
Nutrition, and Population. The course will cover (i) typical problems
faced by the poor and the diagnostic tools that can be used to iden-
tify and analyze them; (ii) pro-poor health sector policies with ex-
amples from existing PRSPs; and (iii) Pro-poor actions and policies
outside the health sector.
Objectives of the course:
The overall course objective is to improve the health of the poor and
vulnerable through analytical work that leads to pro-poor policies,
actions and expenditures. The operational objectives are to assist
PRSP- *authors to improve the analysis and the policies in the health
sector; and *reviewers to advise authors on how to improve the qual-
ity of health input into PRSPs.
Course Structure:
The modules of this course will explore the following relationships:
* Introduction to the 'Pathways to Improved Health Outcomes' diagram
* Module 1: The health system (delivery and financing)
* Module 2: The roles and constraints of households and communities
* Module 3: Factors beyond the health sector
* Module 4: Outcomes
* Module 5: An Integrated Policy Framework
Mode of Delivery:
You will take this course entirely through the internet. Upon accep-
tance as participant you will be given a course ID and password, with
which you will be able to access the course site. The format of the
course relies heavily on 'action learning' which means that you will
be required to actively participate in all online activities, which
will mainly consist of reading the course content and posting assign-
ments and reacting to other participant's postings. There will be
minimum participation requirements to qualify for receiving a comple-
tion certificate.
The working language of the course will be English. Because of the
nature of Internet based learning, you will have to have good to ex-
cellent English writing skills, since all the communication within
the course will be in written format.
Since this is an e-learning course there will be no travel involved.
We require that you be able to set aside 8 hours per week to devote
to the training. It is important that you get your manager's approval
for this time commitment prior to applying to this course. We advise
spreading the workload out over the week, working everyday on it for
an hour or two, rather than doing it all in one day. This will enable
you to actively participate in all discussions and respond to your
fellow participants' postings in a timely manner and thus satisfying
the completion requirements for this course.
Target Audience:
The course targets (health) professionals involved in the Poverty Re-
duction Strategy Papers process either as PRSP authors or as advisors
to the governments in Anglophone Africa and East Asia. It focuses on
people working on PRSPs, either in the countries writing them or in
agencies that are assisting in the writing or who are review-
ing/assessing the documents.
We would also like to encourage you to forward this e-mail to anyone
you might think is interested in, or would benefit from, taking this
course.
Please go to the World Bank learning catalogue to apply for this
course. Click on:
http://wbln0018.worldbank.org/wbi/wbicatalogue.nsf/ExtEvent?OpenForm&code=HNP202-79-010&trail=ByDate
to be taken there directly. Upon acceptance you will receive informa-
tion how to log on to the course.
The fee for this course is US$ 500. This is a one time offer only,
since this offering is a pilot.
For more information you can visit the introductory course website
at:
http://www.worldbank.org/wbi/healthandpopulation/brochure/index.htm
or contact
Jo Hindriks
Tel.: +1-202-473-6425
mailto:jhindriks@worldbank.org
--
To send a message to AFRO-NETS, write to: afro-nets@usa.healthnet.org
To subscribe or unsubscribe, write to: majordomo@usa.healthnet.org
in the body of the message type: subscribe afro-nets OR unsubscribe afro-nets
To contact a person, send a message to: afro-nets-help@usa.healthnet.org
Information and archives: http://www.afronets.org