Health and development
A country cannot develop if its people are sick. Healthy people work harder, live longer and learn better, so good health is one of the engines of development. In this lesson we build the picture step by step: first the four main factors that keep people healthy and help them live longer — clean water and hygiene, a good diet, freedom from disease, and escaping poverty and stress. Then we learn how health care is organised into primary, secondary and tertiary levels, and we look closely at Namibia's own health programmes and honestly weigh their strengths against their challenges. Finally we face the biggest health story in Southern Africa — HIV and AIDS — and see both its heavy cost to our economies and the strong ways Namibia is fighting back.
By the end you should be able to (NSSCO Development Studies 7.2):
- Describe and analyse the main factors that determine good health and life expectancy: clean water supplies and hygiene, a nutritionally adequate diet, freedom from disease, and the effects of poverty and stress, and explain how each links to development
- Describe and evaluate examples of health programmes in Namibia: primary health care and the training of medical auxiliaries, the building of hospitals and training of doctors, the provision of clean water supplies, and community health programmes and immunisation
- Discuss the impact of HIV and AIDS on the economic development of Namibia and other SADC countries, and explain how Namibia's health system is addressing the HIV and AIDS pandemic (ART roll-out, testing, prevention of mother-to-child transmission, awareness and condoms)
Miss Catherine and Mike talk through the whole topic — with the figure and working drawn live.