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FOUR IDEAS TOO CHEAP TO IMPLEMENT.

Monday, 18th of June 2012 Print
Many proposal writers have learned, the hard way, that a $10,000 funding idea, whatever its merits, tends to get back burnered. 'Could you put a couple of zeros on that,' the writer is told, 'and then we could look at it.'

Here are four cheap, easy, cost effective ideas that I haven't seen funded:

1) delayed umbilical clamping. Cost: zero. Benefits: reduction in anemia of neonates, reduction in low birth weight.
    All it means is that the umbilicus is clamped a few minutes later than usual. Who is going to put a million dollars into this idea? Who is going to implement it?
    See http://www.childsurvival.net/?admin=com_admin&folder=articles&file=showarticles


2) revised vaccination card. Take a piece of A4 paper, wrap it around the vaccination card, and mark it in large letters     with the date of the next vaccination appointment. The mother, even if illiterate, is likely to remember and to come.

    See http://www.childsurvival.net/?admin=com_admin&folder=articles&file=showarticles


3) birth spacing. Cheap if done with contraceptives; free if through lactational amenorrhea. The single most effective     way to bring down infant and under-five mortality.
    See http://www.childsurvival.net/?admin=com_admin&folder=articles&file=showarticles

4) Raise taxes on tobacco. Increase government revenue, decrease the prevalence of smoking.

‘Findings from this study provide additional evidence of the effectiveness of tobacco prices at reducing tobacco use.’

SOCIOECONOMIC DIFFERENCES IN THE IMPACT OF SMOKING TOBACCO AND ALCOHOL PRICES ON SMOKING IN INDIA

by G. Emmanuel Guindon, Arindam Nandi, Frank J. Chaloupka, IV, Prabhat Jha  -  #17580 (HE)

Full text is at http://papers.nber.org/papers/W17580

 Take any of these ideas to any funding agency, and see how far you get.

Good luck.


BD 

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