‘I realised’, she tells me, ‘that we knew very well in the Philippines how to take good care of mothers and babies, it’s just that as a country we were choosing to help the “haves” and not help the “have nots”.’

Her training as a doctor had emphasised the calling as much as the profession. She decided that closing the chasm that exists betweeen the health and survival chances  of Philippines rich and poor children could not be done through her own medical work alone. She needed to use her knowledge to advocate for action to tackle the disparity.

It was this passion that led her to join Save the Children, initially overseeing programmes that have trained thousands of public health workers, and now supporting Save the Children’s advocacy and communications across Asia, especially for the EVERY ONE campaign for child survival. She sometimes misses the direct connection of being in medical practice, but she is clear that she is able to help even more people now.

At around the same time that Stephanie in the Philippines was observing Asia’s dramatic inequalities, Fariha Sarawat, two thousand miles away in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was a living embodiment of them. Fancy international school, holidays in Europe, and then a job in advertising and PR for major corporates.

‘I grew up in a “bubble”,’ she admits, embarrassed, ‘completely cut off from the real situation that most Bangladeshi children face. Later, I came to learn more and see more of the real Bangladesh, and to understand better its relationship to the “bubble”. The most important thing I realised was that the poverty that most Bangladeshis experience is rooted in decisions that are determined by people in the “bubble”.’

Her experience in advertising had trained her well to communicate with the “bubble”, and now she had a new mission.

‘I knew that the most important role I could play was not as a teacher of the poor but as a teacher of the people in the “bubble”. We have to get the “bubble kids” and their parents to raise their voice, and use their influence, in solidarity with the whole nation, rather than only for themselves.’ Now Campaign Manager of Save the Children in Bangladesh, and still only 26, Fariha is currently putting the finishing touches to plans for popular mobilization for the EVERY ONE child survival campaign, launching in the coming weeks.

Fariha and Stephanie share the kind of energy and commitment to every child that was shown by our founder, the child rights campaigner Eglantyne Jebb. They are, in many ways, her heirs, and fulfil very well the call she made in 1922 ‘to evoke a co-operative effort of the nations to safeguard their own children on constructive rather than charitable lines.’

‘We should claim certain rights for children,’ Eglantyne urged almost 90 years ago, ‘and labour for their universal recognition.’

‘Every year four million Asian children die before the age of 5,’ points out Stephanie. ‘We can’t talk of Asian growth unless we let these children grow too.’

Speaking to children and parents the picture becomes even more harrowing. Every single person has in some way been affected, losing direct family members or friends.

One 14-year-old girl stood in the midst of her school (well, the rubble that remains of it) telling me how ready she is to return to school, despite losing friends who were in school at the time. She tells me that this is the first time she has stepped near the school again, because she was caught up in aftershocks. She  lives under a makeshift shelter in the sports ground of the school with nothing.

She hopes things will be back to normal and school will start. Another girl tells me she wants to start school to stop worrying about things — at the moment she has nothing to do all day and sits and thinks about the earthquake.

As we enter the site where the Ministry of Education building used to be, we are confronted with cranes, and people wearing neon-yellow high-visibility jackets. The clearance of the building has already begun. Ministry officials were scrambling on the rubble to salvage education records, and are sadly still pulling out dead colleagues who were in the building at the time of the earthquake.

Only now can I really begin to understand why we are finding it so difficult to get school data — the system has totally collapsed. Even the Director General of the Education ministry is sleeping out in the open and is himself trying to find a way to move forward and get schools up and running again.

As we drive through the streets, with overcrowded camps dotted along the roadside, I see a young woman squatting in the gutter and another girl showering on the roadside. The conditions in the camps are certainly no better with serious overcrowding and a lack of food and shelter, and nothing for children to do.

I’m amazed at the children’s reslience though when I see a group of girls perform a dance and song for me, with huge smiles on their faces.

Every single child asks me the same question — when will we go back to school? One older girl asks me whether she will be able to sit her exams this year.

I feel so useless because I don’t have an answer. But it only compels me even more to get temporary schools up and running, even if only in a desperate plea to help at least some of these children return to normality and get their education back on track.

As I head to my tent in the grounds of our office at 11.30 pm after another long day, I at least feel fortunate that I have a bucket and water to shower with. There are so many children out in Port-au-Prince who are sleeping out in the open or, if they’re lucky, with a sheet over their heads, worrying about when their schools will start again.

There is as yet no clarity as to how this platform will work: how national health plans will be assessed, how resources will be pulled if at all, and how they will be disbursed in country? The ‘how’ is still very much in discussion. The ‘whether it is worth it’ though is not up for discussion as the decision for the platform to go ahead has already been taken. But is it a worthwhile investment of time, energy and resources? Is it not yet another layer created by donors with no less burden on low-income countries seeking funding for health systems and hence yet more transaction costs?

Another crucial issue to which we did not get any satisfactory answer is the issue of resources. These discussions of a joint platform are a bit of a waste if no additional resources are allocated to support those countries wishing to strengthen their health systems.

Yet when asked the question, all 4 partners (The Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation, The Global Fund, the World Health Organisation and the World Bank) agreed that the Taskforce report and the additional resources promised were a major disappointment.

We need a minimum of US$250 billion by 2015 to strengthen health systems and achieve the health-related MDGs. Yet the final Taskforce report proposes US$5.3 billion by 2015 only. A major disappointment indeed. It therefore felt that we were all sitting for two days to discuss an idea which 1/ was not necessarily that good and 2/ had no financial backing.

We also expressed concern around the performance of the health institutions involved in the platform, particularly the World Bank. This joint approach will give them increased power in defining what can or cannot be funded and what qualifies as health systems strengthening. But if their approach is not very successful in the first place should they have that power?

On a positive note, it was great to see how engaged civil society was, and how receptive the Global Fund was to new ideas and apporaches.

We will continue to call for greater budget support, accountability towards civil society by all actors, and progressive approaches that ensures that children, particularly those most vulnerable, are not forgotten.

Two weeks after the earthquake, vehicles still have to swerve around the debris left by collapsed houses, fallen walls and crushed cars. Everywhere there are signs asking for help – mainly for food and water but also for medicines and every morning at first light hundreds of people gather at the gates looking for work.

Everywhere you look there are signs, not just of the physical damage caused by the quake, but also the emotional aftershocks that are affecting the entire population. Staff refuse to come indoors, fearful that the walls will collapse on them. At a memorial service for a colleague killed in the disaster, a translator cannot continue. Even in the commercial world, discussions with an international bank manager are put on hold as he is overcome by emotions when recollecting the moments after the disaster.

And yet, despite all this, conversation quickly turns to survival stories – everybody knows many who have died, but they also know of someone who has miraculously survived. And there is both a recognition and a determination that, for those who survived, life must go on.

I am out here to assist our livelihoods section with their cash programming initiatives. So far we have assessed how we are going to get cash grants to the most vulnerable people hit by the earthquake, start cash for work initiatives for the able bodied and provide funding for petty traders to enable the local economy to start to recover.

 We are now in the final throes of contract negotiations with two of the country’s banks who are as equally determined to make the schemes work as we are – not an easy task as their complete infrastructure was destroyed in many of the areas in which Save the Children are present. This type of commitment is typical of the resilience seen on a daily basis – no one is quite sure how things are going to fully recover but they are determined that they will.

The last 5 days have involved a variety of activities. Writing strategies which try to build back better with more resilience against future emergencies (such as the hurricanes which are due in a few months). I have been trying to budget for the emergency response, and urgently procure huge quantities of medicines and medical supplies. I have attended the health coordination meetings, trying to coordinate amidst the chaos of numerous agencies packed into a small tent. Another coordination challenge is communicating with the other teams in Leogane and Jacmel, 2 other affected towns in Haiti.

The mobile clinics started working in the camps today, which was great to see following the background work of recruiting the medical staff, assessing the camps, printing the reporting forms and organising the medicines and equipment.

There are still many challenges remaining in the coming weeks. There are many areas that are still yet to receive support, and there is the challenge of identifying these areas in the midst of the humanitarian flurry of activity. There are many different types of organisations working in Haiti in the aftermath of the earthquake. There is the government and the national organisations, which have been severely traumatised by the disaster, but are starting to try to tackle the problems.

There are the traditional international organisations, with NGOs such as Save the Children and UN agencies such as WHO – these organisations know each other well as they have worked on many emergencies together, and know each other from coordinating regularly during the rest of the time. There is a significant mititary presence, that brings a huge logistical might, but are not used to working with other humanitarian organisations.

In Haiti, there have also been numerous smaller organisations establishing operations – these organisations have been able to save many people in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, but now it is important that those supporting the people of Haiti are able to stay for the next year in order to create stability in the humanitarian effort and to help Haiti to get back on its feet.

I think that it is time to get back into the tent, hoping for not too many aftershocks or shots during the night, as it would be useful to get a good nights sleep – I am sure there is more work to do in the morning!

The Google party is even cooler this year with wetsuit, snorkel-clad waiters serving sushi, and coloured pure oxygen tanks for those in need of a blast. Media moguls, politicos, all the young global leaders and even some royalty hit the dance floor.

The accessibility of all these people is unparalleled.  People want to capitalise on that by following up afterwards and the biz card ritual is like nothing I’ve ever seen outside Japan.  I swear some measure success of their participation by how many inches of cards they collect and give out.

What does it all add up to?  For all the streams of work on health, hunger, education, disaster response - what’s really needed is some kind of framework for aggregating pledges today and outcomes tomorrow.  And a Google-type system for sharing knowledge about what works and what doesn’t.

This will be all the more glaringly needed at the next big global gathering in NY in September to review progress against the 8 Millennium Development Goals that must be reach by 2015. I’m sure some of the people at Davos could sort those web aps if they decided to.

*First posted on FT.com

It’s already starting to feel real as I listen to the fuelled-up journalists on the plane itching for a story and the accounts from the lady sitting next to me who was in the earthquake when it happened. She works for a small Norweigan foundation and told me that by some miracle their school had been untouched, despite not having an special earthquake resistant design…but I fear that this is only one of the lucky schools - CNN is reporting that over 97% of the schools have been destroyed.

So the golden question, so beautifully put by the foreign exchange lady at Heathrow who seemed to be bedazzled by the fact that I was flying to Haiti is: Why are you going to do education when it’s an emergency? Surely these people need food, water and shelter first?

And, speaking now to a friend from WFP, I hear the same question. Surely education is not needed for another three months? All the schools have been destroyed. My dear friend, I say. You of all people should know just how important education is, even in the immediate aftermath of an emergency!

Children are the most vulnerable after any emergency. The immediate protection risks are huge, so establishing a safe learning environment enables them to get back into a routine and establish some sense of normalcy whilst the chaos is going on around them. Children need the support of other children to understand what has just happened and to feel able to make sense of their lives. Parents are desperately trying to rebuild their lives, bury the dead, fetch water, and create a livelihood. Getting children into school relieves some of the burden.

Emergency education does not always mean getting children straight back into structured learning - it is a transition towards this through the provision of play and learning opportunities in safe spaces, and children and parents are calling for it now!

I am thrilled to hear that some schools in Haiti will open on Monday. But I am sure I have a long task ahead of me working with our teams to make sure this is the case for all the other children who have been affected.

I can hear helicopters — it must be Friday and the mega-players are arriving. Sure enough, shortly after Bill and Melinda (Gates) wander by. President Shimon Perez of Israel is rumoured to be here. The gent’s loos are reportedly commandeered by Chinese security personnel.  And, oh look, here comes Boris.

I’m catching quick meetings with CEOs I’d struggle to get time with normally.  So I miss what I hear was a great session on global talent mobility - a big issue for Save the Children.

Everyone without a minder admits to being triple booked and labouring under a sense of missed opportunities.

I rush to a different location (at least its stopped snowing) for a session on ‘Redesigning a healthy start’. It’s actually pretty obvious what’s needed in terms of health, education and nutrition - so what’s holding things back?  We even have the economic argument - a 5% reduction in child mortality leads to a 1% increase in economic growth.

On to another session, somewhat grandly entitled ‘Setting the global education agenda for the 21st century’ moderated by John Chambers of Cisco. The world is off track to achieve universal primary education by 2015.  Debate as to what’s needed - more innovation or more accountability?  Surely it’s both.

This is frustrating given India really could stop its children going hungry and dying from preventable causes - with enough determination.  Bangladesh, a poorer country has made faster progress on cutting child mortality rates.

The G20 is confirmed as the critical new global grouping. I do hope development doesn’t get left as solely the domain of G8.  There is good news here though - Canadian PM Harper announces the agenda for next G8 will focus on maternal and child mortality.

In the space of the next hour the UK election campaign hit town. The Tory top team are out in force and then Mandelson and team stopped by.  The Duke of York’s reception attracted them all, and even the bankers make an appearance.

I finally found a corner in a corridor to prep with panel members for our breakfast event, squeeze in an interview for Swiss TV, then another Haiti event. Klaus Schwab explains how they completely redid the agenda last minute after the earthquake struck - no kidding.

*This blog is also published on FT.com

I think we have the answers to these questions but not enough time and ongoing interest to build a shared understanding across the different sectors. Still, the room is not hostile and the concluding straw poll shows more people optimistic than pessimistic about the scale-up in Haiti.

Next session on global hunger - everyone is shocked that it’s common for children to be growing up today with stunted brains and bodies.  Strong participation by corporates - Kraft, Yum and others. Their staff worldwide expect them to take a lead and do the right thing. Their leaders are well motivated.

But as I make my way through the snow to the next event, I can’t help recalling Davos 2008 when the global food crisis was the hot topic - I find it disconcerting that there’s no real accountability system for assessing what was actually taken forward from past summits.

I notice though it seems to be all water and dry sandwiches at the hospitality suites this year - in keeping with the times I guess.

*This blog is also published on FT.com