Friday, June 13, 2008

HELP Plus


Just want to put it on the record that my colleague Gib Clarke (pictured here being treated quite well at a Filipino site visit) has come up with a good acronym for the efforts to combine all these population, health, and environment components to advance development for poor communities. PHE doesn't exactly roll off the tongue or make clear its focus at first blush.

Gib came up with HELP Plus which stands for Health, Environment, Livelihoods, and Population with the Plus standing for whatever the communities want it to be. Could be micro-credit, could be sustainable agriculture, could be water and sanitation...

So HELP Plus it is for our acronym obsessed world. Parenthetically, the best acronyms come out of the Philippines, a country that seems to revel in them. IPOPCORM is my favorite, designed purposefully to sound like popcorn according to one of its architects, Leona D'Agnes. Integrated Population and Coastal Resource Management. Impressive title and impressive projects. I in fact blogged on Grist about my visit to one of their sites a couple of years ago where I got to swim with Nemo!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Gib by the way has made a pledge in the Losing Pounds for Berga effort!