February 14, 2003
Five Latin American projects won awards at the recent 4th Conference on Globalization and Equity in Cairo, Egypt, in which the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) participated actively. The encounter, organized by the Global Development Network, analyzed how the benefits of globalization could be shared equitably and alternatives to reduce injustice and inequity.
For the first time, PAHO gave awards to research projects and participated in the selection committee of the Award for the Most Innovative Development Project, won this time by a Latin American project called "Renascer (Rebirth)." The $100,000 award went to the non-governmental organization working in poor neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which has helped some 5,000 poor children and 1,500 families recover from illness and improve their lives.
The program, working with families at Lagoa Hospital, in Rio de Janeiro, offers them health care, counseling, professional training and other tools to improve their welfare, quality of life and economic situation. "We work to break the vicious cycle of poverty, disease, hospital admission, discharge, readmission and death by creating a basis for improving their health and well-being and enable their economic self-sufficiency."
Rubén Suárez, regional adviser in Health Economics at PAHO, who represented the Organization at the conference in Cairo, said the objective of the medals and the award is to distinguish those researchers who submit innovative proposals on the impact of globalization, economic growth, the poverty and inequality, that can advance political decision-making.
Dr. Vera Cordeiro, the Brazilian physician who started the project that won the award, said "We are studying the best way of utilizing the money, which was an honor to us, but I can advance that it will aim at two objectives: strengthening the project and multiplying it for different countries." The Renascer project is now in use in 11 public hospitals in Brazil, providing support and assistance to some 22,000 people. "In 2001, we created Friends of Renascer, based in New York, to expand this model around the world," she added.
"The health concept of Renascer is very interesting," noted Suárez. "They work with a comprehensive health idea, looking at living conditions of children who arrive at the hospital. They continue helping them and their families when they leave the hospital, offering them tools like education, work alternatives, repairs to the home, and jobs, so they can climb out extreme poverty and reach a standard of living that reduces the risks of recurrence of the cycle of disease and poverty. This model could be applied perfectly to other public institutions."
Of the five winning research projects, three focus on problems of two countries of the Americas: Mexico and Argentina. Economist Osvaldo González-Rozada, of the University Torcuato Di Tella of Argentina, analyzed why poverty and inequity increased drastically in that country in the period 1991-2002. Economy professor Jorge Garza-Rodríguez, of the University of Monterrey, in Mexico, worked on determinants of poverty in that country; and mathematician David Mayer-Foulkes of the Economic and Education Research Center in Mexico analyzed global divergence.
According to Lyn Squire, director of the Global Development Network, the process of globalization cannot be successful if it is not accompanied by social justice. "Inequity is no longer local-it has global consequences. The world will not live in peace and happiness until the drastic gap between the rich and the poor, within and across is addressed."
PAHO, established in 1902 is the world's oldest public health organization. It works with all the countries of the Americas to improve the health and quality of life of their inhabitants. It also serves as the Regional Office for the Americas of the World Health Organization.
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