Dear Centre Leaders,
Greetings from the INDEPTH Secretariat. We hope you have had a good week.

We have the following items for your attention:

1. Experts meet in Geneva to review iHOPE Project

iHOPE SAG team

The first meeting of the Scientific Advisory Group (SAG) of INDEPTH Network's iHOPE Project has taken place in Geneva, Switzerland from June 4 – 5, 2015.  The SAG, which is a group of international experts who provide independent scientific advice reviewed the iHOPE project's overall objectives and approved an agreed project design and implementation plan.

The iHOPE project, which is funded by the Gates Foundation, aims at improving estimation of Out-of-Pocket expenses (OOPs) in a household survey, develop a set of questions to facilitate OOP specific disease measurement, test and develop alternative approaches to Household surveys and provide a socio-economic  context to interpret OOPs.

The SAG team comprises members from WHO and Swiss TPH, World Bank, Erasmus University in The Netherlands, South Africa's University of Cape Town, MEASURE DHS Project (USAID), MACRO, NIDI, Institute of Metrics and Education and Gates Foundation. These include Dr. David Evans, Dr. Diane Steele, Mr. Olivier Dupriez, Prof. Owen O'Donnell, Dr. John Ataguba, Dr. Fred Arnold, Dr. Patricia Hernandez, Prof. Emmanuela Gakidou and Dr. Hong Wang. Also present in this meeting are Dr.Tessa Edejer, Dr Flores Pentzke Saint-Germain and Dr. Fabrizio Tediosie from the partners – WHO and Swiss TPH.

Representing iHOPE was the project manager, Dr. James Akazili. Others were Dr. Abdramane Soura, Prof. Nguyen Thi Kim Chuc and Mr Yadeta Bacha from INDEPTH member HDSS of Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso), Filabavi (Vietnam) and Kersa (Ethiopia) respectively. The INDEPTH Network Executive Director, Prof. Osman Sankoh, also attended the meeting.

2. INDEPTH celebrates World Environment Day

The INDEPTH Network joins the world in celebrating World Environment Day (WED) - a day set aside to raise awareness about the importance of protecting planet Earth and mother nature. On this day, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) calls on nations, encouraging them to do something positive for the environment.

The theme for this year’s WED is “Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care". It tells us how the well-being of humanity, the environment, and the functioning of the economy, ultimately depend upon the responsible management of the planet’s natural resources.

Our colleagues from the Environment and Health Working Group, led by Dr Ali Sie have provided some commentary on the theme which we will publish in the media. We thank them for taking time to do this.