IRD programs are designed to rebuild local health care infrastructure and equip communities to meet the basic health, nutrition and reproductive needs of their people. Designed to emphasize preventive as well as primary healthcare, IRD programs include training, education and outreach to raise public awareness on topics ranging from family planning and HIV/AIDS education to nutritional information and health management.

	Women First HIV/AIDS program
	Integrating gender-focused HIV/AIDS activities with the economic and social development of women
	Iraqi Mental Health Program
	Improving the mental health of Iraqis healing from conflict across geographic and sectarian boundaries
	Distribution of Medical Commodities in the Caucasus
	Providing medical equipment and supplies to both internally displaced and formerly displaced persons
	Strategic Health Support in Jordan
	Providing access to quality health and psycho-social care for Iraqi refugees living in Amman.
	Avian Flu Awareness and Prevention
	Increasing community awareness and preventing outbreaks
	Reducing HIV/AIDS Stigma and Discrimination in Ukraine
	Working with communities and peer groups to build awareness of the targeted outbreak

Over the last 10 years, IRD has improved the health of millions of people, from the immediate needs for medical supplies for refugees and internally displaced people in Armenia to the long-term needs for improved hygiene education in Indonesia. IRD’s technically appropriate health programs include HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, maternal and child health, family planning and reproductive health, treatment of infectious diseases, nutrition, community-based primary health care, health education, and water and sanitation hygiene training programs. Improving health is also interwoven with IRD activities in other sectors such as sustainable agriculture and democracy and governance.

The Women First program in Mozambique is an example of this multi-sectoral, holistic approach. The program empowers Mozambican women through a combination of small-business development and peer education on health and HIV/AIDS. Women First creates connections between women’s groups and the private sector, putting a supply chain in place to give women greater access to household products such as soap and candles from the private sector company Unilever. Women First gives women in these groups business skills training and provides them with start-up baskets of goods on credit. As the women go from house to house to sell these products, they also raise awareness of health issues. They complete a comprehensive year-long health and HIV curriculum, which has been developed through participatory methodologies and is based on the needs of the women in the communities served. The program has been so successful that other organizations are examining the possibility of replicating it.

In Jordan, IRD is working with local organizations the Noor Al Hussein Foundation and the Jordanian Red Crescent to provide access to quality health care for Iraqi refugees living in Amman. Thousands of refugees have received general, obstetric, internal, pediatric, dermatological, dental, and psychosocial care since the program began in June 2007. Based on the program’s success, IRD was awarded a follow-on program through December 2008 from UNHCR.

IRD’s child nutrition improvement program in Cambodia continued in 2007, designed to reduce the number of children under five years old who die of malnutrition in Teuk Phos District. IRD is encouraging exclusive breastfeeding for at least the first six months of a child’s life to prevent food and water-borne infections. Additionally, nutritionally fortified foods, oral rehydration and zinc solutions, and soap are being socially marketed to the approximately 53,000 people in the district.

While it may have dropped from the headlines for now, avian influenza (AI) is still a large threat to health and economic security. IRD is assisting communities in Ukraine to adopt appropriate practices of bird handling, safe consumption of poultry products, and proper hygiene practices with the goal of increasing community awareness of AI and preventing AI outbreaks in animals and humans in the regions with higher risk. In October 2007, IRD received additional funding from USAID to scale up and reinforce AI prevention activities in Ukraine. The program now focuses on 14 high-risk regions, primarily in southern and eastern Ukraine.

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