Recognizing that the first 1,000 days of life—from pregnancy to a child’s second birthday—establishes critical foundations for growth and development, the Cambodian government is improving the quality and capacity of local maternal and child health and nutrition services through the USD$62.5 million Cambodia Nutrition Project. The vital frontline tasks of the program is entrusted to the village health workers who help health centers provide outreach services to the most remote and hard-to-reach villages. The health workers have an enlightened interest in seeing to the success of their labor—they are recruited from and live in the villages that they serve.
The impacts of climate change are happening before the eyes of health officials in Tuvalu. Dengue fever and influenza outbreaks used to be rare in the island nation, but as the planet warms up such outbreaks have become frequent. Pelesala Kaleia told the Second Asia Pacific Health Financing Forum in Sri Lanka that there is an urgent need for climate smart health systems that can mitigate and adapt to the impacts of global warming. The Tuvalu health official was a featured speaker in a session exploring the intersecting challenges of advancing universal health coverage and climate change.
