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Partnership for Child Development

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The Partnership for Child Development (PCD)
Founded1992
FocusSchool Health, Poverty reduction
Location
OriginsUniversity of Oxford
Imperial College London
Area served
Global
MethodCapacity building, knowledge dissemination, building the evidence base and building global partnerships.
Websitehttp://www.imperial.ac.uk/pcd, http://www.schoolsandhealth.org

The Partnership for Child Development (PCD) is a research group based at Imperial College London that seeks to improve health and nutrition in school-age children and youth in low-income countries, and thereby improve their education. It was formed in 1992 at the University of Oxford to bridge gaps between academia, funding bodies and the education and health sectors in low-income countries.[1]

History

Based on a growing evidence base for the beneficial nature of antihelminthic treatment (deworming) in the early 1990s, the Partnership for Child Development was formed by the United Nations Development Programme and the Rockefeller Foundation within the Scientific Coordinating Centre at the University of Oxford.[2] PCD is now based within Imperial College London's Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, in St Mary's Hospital, London with technical assistance operations in Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Mali and Nigeria which are funded by international development organisations including the World Bank and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.[3]

Organisational Focus

The organisation's activities are demand-led: PCD helps low-income countries meet their school health needs using the findings of evidence-based research. PCD is a knowledge-based institution which creates and shares information. It conducts operational research showing how interventions can be implemented and evaluated at the country level, for example enabling mass treatment of children for common infections such as hookworms and bilharzia.[4] PCD also facilitates the sharing of knowledge between academia, governments and agencies at both national and international level, through web sites, mailing lists and a global network of partners. In recent years, a major focus of this work has been assisting educators and health professionals to work together to help schools respond to the threat that HIV&AIDS poses to education, as well as supporting governments to better target orphans and vulnerable children in their child health programming.[5][6]

A major function of PCD is capacity-building, by means of courses and workshops for governmental and non-governmental staff in developing countries. These include:

  • An annual short course in school-based health, nutrition and HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa.
  • An annual short course in school-based health and nutrition in South East Asia.
  • Working with ministries of education and health to run regular workshops and network meetings in Africa on school health, nutrition and school feeding programmes.[citation needed]

FRESH (Focusing Resources on Effective School Health) is an inter-agency initiative developed by WHO, UNICEF, UNESCO and the World Bank, incorporating the experience and expertise of numerous other agencies and organisations, including PCD. This initiative is a key guiding document for PCD's development work.[citation needed]

References

  1. ^ Nokes C (1996), Journal of Biosocial Science [1] A healthy body and a healthy mind? : The relationship between ill-health and cognitive function in school-age children. Accessed 28th March 2012.
  2. ^ "A. Cerami & K.S. Warren, Drugs, Parasitology Today, Vol. 10" (PDF). Elsevier. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  3. ^ Bundy, Donald. Rethinking School Health: A Key Component of Education for All (1st ed.). World Bank. p. 84. {{cite book}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)
  4. ^ Jamison, D. T., J. G. Breman, A. R. Measham, G. Alleyne, M. Claeson, D. B. Evans, P. Jha, A. Mills, and P. Musgrove. Disease Control Priorities II. Oxford University Press. p. Chapter 58. Retrieved 17 September 2014.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  5. ^ "Measuring the education sector response to HIV and AIDS" (PDF). UNESCO. UNESCO, Paris. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  6. ^ Skovdal, M. "Acceptability of conditions in a community-led cash transfer programme for orphaned and vulnerable children in Zimbabwe". Health Policy and Planning. 1–9: 3. {{cite journal}}: |access-date= requires |url= (help)

Further reading

Jamison, D. T., J. G. Breman, A. R. Measham, G. Alleyne, M. Claeson, D. B. Evans, P. Jha, A. Mills, and P. Musgrove, ed. 2006. Disease Control Priorities in Developing Countries, 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press. [2]

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