At the end of 2019, we started the final, 2-year, phase of our work supported by Ceniarth, reported here: Ceniarth to support ColaLife for two more years. As for many health initiatives, in early 2020, COVID intervened and we’ve had to revise our plans several times. We’re delighted to report that on 22-Apr-22, Ceniarth agreed to our rescheduled workplan, saying:
“We did indeed have a chance to review the report and, as usual, we are in awe of ColaLife’s ability to accomplish so much while adapting to changing circumstances. The launch of ORSZCA seems to be a great success. Congrats on the continued momentum.”
This is what trust-based funding looks like – and we’re grateful for the flexibility, on-going support and understanding of impact that Ceniarth offers.
So, what has changed? In 2019, our plan was to globalise our impact by:
- Advocating for the new ORS/Zinc co-packaging recommendation that we helped secure – see: Success: WHO adds co-packaged ORS and Zinc to its Essential Medicines List.
- Publishing the ColaLife Playbook (bit.ly/colalife.playbook).
- Publishing ColaLife’s work in peer-reviewed journals.
Our intention was to pursue the advocacy workstream through the Diarrhoea Innovations Group (DIG). We had worked closely with DIG on the co-packaging application to WHO; instigating this global effort in Sep-17, and then leading the development of the application which was submitted in Nov-18. See: PATH applauds recognition for frontline treatment of childhood diarrheal disease by the World Health Organization.
In the first quarter of 2020 things were going well. We were in liaison with UNICEF on a joint WHO/UNICEF statement on co-packaged ORS and Zinc. But this work stalled when COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic in Mar-20. During the pandemic, we were able to create the ColaLife Playbook; it was launched in Oct-20 (see: The ColaLife Playbook launches today (28-Oct-20)). However, it wasn’t possible to continue our work involving WHO, UNICEF and many other partners, who were focussing on the pandemic.
In Jun-21 we judged that the world was starting to learn how to live we COVID-19 and called a meeting with PATH (who managed DIG) and Leith Greenslade of JustActions to discuss options. At this meeting, we learned that DIG’s funding had come to an end. This made our plan to use DIG as the platform for the planned advocacy work was unworkable.
So, it was suggested at this meeting that we should establish a new global alliance to undertake this work. Named the ORS/Zinc Co-pack Alliance (ORSZCA), it was launched on 19-Jan-22.
We amended our strategy for global impact which now looks like this:
We’re extremely grateful for Ceniarth’s on-going support, which allows us to focus on our impact and legacy throughout 2022 and into 2023, taking advantage of a number of other global relaunch initiatives after COVID.
PS: If you’ve not already contributed to our global ORS/Zinc status survey please help us by doing so. Questionnaires are being used to create a unique view of the ORS/Zinc status across the world which being shared back here:
orszco-pack.org/orsz-status
The questionnaire takes less than 10 minutes to complete and is designed to capture the information you have at your fingertips. We are building a complete picture by getting multiple questionnaires for each country. The questionnaire is also available in French here.
Thanks.
