Resources shared by the SDG Platform

The increased budgetary allocations to the health sector by county governments point to an acknowledgement not only of the enormous challenges facing the sector, but also of good health as a prerequisite to overall development.

There has never been a better time for partnerships that harness the power of business to drive prosperity by tackling health challenges. The combination of a growing population and preventable infections means that companies with a focus on solving consumer challenges can expect to record impressive profits while at the same time serving a social good.

Mandera’s double whammy, the concurrent outbreaks of cholera and chikungunya, is bringing to the fore the need for accelerated epidemic preparedness and prevention systems. Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal disease that can kill within hours if left untreated.

Chikungunya virus is most often spread to people by Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes. These are the same mosquitoes that transmit dengue ,yellow fever and zika virus. Its symptoms include high fever, joint pain, rash and headache. There is no vaccine to prevent or medicine to treat chikungunya virus infection.

For the community of Mandera, a remote Northern frontier town in Kenya, long resigned to years of what they felt was neglect, the pomp associated with hosting Ambassadors for the first time was reason enough for evident optimism about the future.

The Ambassadors of Turkey, Sweden, the European Union, Denmark and Finland to Kenya and the Executive Director of UNFPA were in Mandera in November 2015 to launch a Community Life Center and join the First Lady of Kenya for the Beyond Zero campaign.

Mandera in north-eastern Kenya, has often been described as “the worst place on earth to give birth.” Mandera’s maternal mortality ratio stands at 3,795 deaths per 100,000 live births, almost double that of wartime Sierra Leone at 2,000 deaths per 100,000 live births.

For many women in Mandera County a hard to reach, insecure and arid part of North Eastern Kenya, the story of life from childhood to adulthood is one about sheer pain and struggle for survival. As little girls, they undergo female genital mutilation (FGM), a painful carving out of the external genitalia that leaves them with lifelong physical and psychological scars.

12 December is Jamhuri Day, an auspicious day for Kenya, as it marks her independence from colonial rule in 1963.

Every year, one million Kenyans are driven below the poverty line by healthcare-related expenditures.  Poverty predisposes them to disease and slows all aspects of growth in the economy.

Although Kenya has overall made tremendous progress in improving maternal health, some sub-regions remain among the 10 most risky places in the world for women to give birth. The impact is most felt in remote and hard to reach places like, Mandera County, where for every 100,000 live births, about 3,795 women die every year.

The Sustainable Development Goals set forth an ambitious target to provide access to quality, affordable health care for all by 2030 — a target that has evolved into a global movement. Yet, each year, 11 million Africans citizens are pushed into extreme poverty because of out-of-pocket health expenses that trap poor households in cycles of catastrophic expenditure, impoverishment, and illness, particularly in countries lacking social protection and health insurance.