Assignment: Policy brief

The country i was assigned to, is RWANDA . My topic is health isuues in Rwanda

Policy Brief number 1 will summarize for your country the key issues in women's OR children'shealth, who is most affected by them, key risk factors, the links between these issues with social and economic development and what might be done to enhance the health of women and/or children in the poorest countries in cost-effective ways.

The paper should answer the following questions:
• What is the nature and magnitude of the problem?
• Who is affected by it?
• What are the risk factors for the problem?
• What are the economic and social consequences of the problem?
• What few priority steps do you recommend be taken to address the problem and what is your rationale for these recommendations?

The briefing note should follow the above outline, with one exception. It should start with a single paragraph that summarizes for the minister all of the points you want to make. That summary paragraph would read something like:

"About AAA people die every year of TB in our country. The incidence of TB is YYY. AboutUUU people in our country get drug-resistant TB every year and about HHH% of those who are infected with HIV have active TB disease. TB affects largely the urban and rural poor and stems from poverty, general ill health, and the lack of coverage of our health services. TB causes illness for an extended period, stops people from working, causes them to spend large amounts on health, and leads many families into poverty. DOTs is a low cost approach to TB diagnosis and treatment that we are not using sufficiently. We must immediately expand our DOTs program, starting in the north, where the disease burden is highest. We must increase case detection and treatment success rates. We must also pay special attention to the diagnosis and management of drug-resistant TB and to TB/HIV co-infection."

Each paper must begin with this "one paragraph tells all summary."

These briefs are very similar to the briefs you will write in many different types of jobs when you graduate and an explicit aim of the course is to help you learn to write such briefs.

Please also note, however, that in the "real world" you would also have to tell the minister how much your recommendations would cost and how he might pay for them. I am sparing everyone that need, since this is an introductory course!!