Humanitarian Health Research Partnership 2018 with French Red Cross Foundation

Since 2016, the AXA Research Fund has partnered with the French Red Cross Foundation, which supports francophone research in the area of humanitarian action. Through this partnership, AXA and the French Red Cross Foundation have supported eight young researchers working to advance action in service of the most vulnerable.

The goal of the French Red Cross Foundation is to mobilize the scientific community to work with suffering populations in both the North and South of Africa, in order to develop concrete, sustainable responses. Within these parameters, it funds and assists independent francophone researchers, prioritizing those originating from the areas involved, by providing postdoctoral grants. These one-year grants are awarded to researchers from different social science disciplines, such as sociology and anthropology, to study common social and humanitarian action issues.

The support of the AXA Research Fund makes it possible to fund grants for work related to “Risks, Health and Humanitarianism” each year. The grants are intended to improve our understanding of effective humanitarian action in response to the health needs of vulnerable populations in crisis situations such as epidemics and natural disasters, or when facing global and systemic risks such as climate change, migration and malnutrition.

Researchers supported by the AXA Research Fund in 2018 are working on the following projects:

Economic assessment of climate risk management tools: the case of drought risk in Niger. Prof. Mariama Nouhou KOUTCHA, Doctor and Professor of Agricultural Climatology and General Agronomy in the Faculty of Agronomy at the Islamic University in Say, Niger – Class of 2018

Prof. Mariama Nouhou KOUTCHA is developing an economic assessment, with a comparison between populations, of existing and prospective tools for protecting against climate risks in Niger, in order to determine the optimal combination. Her work involves identifying all mechanisms and stakeholders involved in climate risk management in Niger, micro-economic analysis of the impact of the mechanisms identified and recommendations for improvement.

The fight against malnutrition in Ivory Coast: measurement of and perspectives on use of the WASH and ATPC projects by local stakeholders in Bounkani. Dr. Edouard Kouadio KOUASSI, Doctor of Sociology and Researcher at the Center for Development Research (CRD) at the Université Alassane Ouattara in Bouaké, Ivory Coast – Class of 2018

The purpose of the research conducted by Edouard Kouadio KOUASSI is to assess the impact of the PADEHA program on malnutrition in the Bounkani area in Ivory Coast. The Ivorian government and its partners initiated the “Program to Support Accelerated Sustainable Access to Water, Hygiene and Purification” to reduce water-related health risks. It includes the presentation of a PADEHA assessment of malnutrition in the area and a recommendation of strategies for comprehensive adoption of means of sustainable population behavior change.

NGO responses to failures in the health system in northern Ivory Coast: palliative or substitute? Prof. Toily Anicet ZRAN, Doctor and Professor-Researcher of History, attached to the Center for Research on the History of the People of the African savanna (CRESHA) of the History Department of the Université Alassane Ouattara in Bouaké, Ivory Coast – Class of 2018

Access to health care remains very difficult in the former rebel-held areas of Ivory Coast, particularly in rural areas of the North, where the few dilapidated health facilities are now at crisis point. In these conditions, NGO support continues to be crucial to the health of the population. Toily Anicet ZRAN is focusing research on the impact and issues of NGO activity in the health sector in northern Ivory Coast in response to the lack of state health care delivery.