focus groups and in-depth interviews of households and community members, health staff, and provincial and local authorities. As a secondary outcome, the study seeks to disaggregate to what extent the improvement (if any) can be attributable to Atlantic’s interventions, to new government policies, rising incomes, and other socioeconomic and demographic factors. The current study is modeled after a longitudinal study of Ho Chi Minh City and environs (1998-2001) with the southern branch of VASS, where the Council pioneered one of the first integrated qualitative and quantitative studies in Vietnam. To spearhead our efforts to measure change and the impact of social interventions in Vietnam, the SSRC has appointed a nine-member international and interdisciplinary advisory committee to provide intellectual leadership and guidance. Among the aims of the advisory committee are to strengthen the link between biomedical and social sciences and to improve understanding of how to assess the impacts of population health interventions—both intended and unintended—in a rapidly changing context. In December 2007, the international Advisory Committee with Vietnam program staff held its second planning meeting to finalize the research design framework for the longitudinal study and prepare for fieldwork, which is expected to take place this summer. Cuba The Cuba program undertook over the last year an array of activities to facilitate the flow of information between Cuban scholars and their counterparts abroad. The four specific projects are: The Initiative on Cuban Libraries and Archives In 2007, the Ford Foundation provided a grant to the program to continue activities aimed at increasing the capacity of Cuban institutions to prepare for and respond to disasters. Given the increasing number of hurricanes in the region each year and the devastating effects these storms have had on the island, it was agreed that the next phase of this initiative should follow practices and methods developed by the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) and the International Council on Archives (ICA). The emphasis is on training local staff and implementing low-cost measures, with the aim of establishing disaster response plans at each library and archive. Funding has been allocated for two workshops on disaster networks to engage institutions throughout the island and across the region. A third workshop on the recovery of photographic negatives is also being planned.
54
ITEMSANDISSUES
Working Group Activities In July 2007, Yolanda Martinez-San Miguel of the University of Pennsylvania and Mabel Morana of Washington University–St. Louis traveled to Cuba for a third seminar in our successful Cultural Studies series held at the Fundación Ludwig. As in previous years, this visit was carried out in close collaboration with Working Group member Luisa Campuzano, as well as the director of the Fundación Ludwig, Helmo Hernandez. The seminar, which engaged more than thirty young scholars, discussed issues of colonialism and identity in Latin American literature. Visits by North American and other scholars continue to be extremely well received in Cuba, and our counterparts at the Academy of Sciences share our conviction that the continuation of these exchanges ranks near the top of programmatic priorities in times of limited funding. Work with Cuban Economists In March 2008, the SSRC will sponsor a workshop in Havana on “Institutional Building, Development, and Social Transformation in Latin America and the Caribbean.” The workshop will address two clusters of issues—knowledge intensive growth and social welfare, with special attention paid to agricultural sector reform. This workshop stems from a previous workshop in June 2006 on “Vulnerability and Economic Institutions,” from which the presented papers have been published in Spanish by the Buenos Aires-based Coordinadora Regional de Investigaciones Económicas y Sociales (CRIES) and will soon be published in English. Hemingway Document Preservation Project The SSRC continues to assist in the preservation, conservation and reformatting of Ernest Hemingway’s papers and documents that remain in Cuba. At present, digitalized images of all flat paper documents are being converted to microfi lm by our partners at The Center for Research Libraries (CRL). Both the Consejo Nacional de Patrimonio Cultural (CNPC) in Cuba and the JFK Library in the United States will receive three copies of the microfi lm (two negative copies and one positive copy), ensuring proper preservation and access to the materials. Once we complete this phase of the project, we will begin work on preserving the maps, photographs, marginalia, and other documents in the collection. Change in Cuba The SSRC is currently developing a web-based series of commentaries featuring social science perspectives on Cuba, its history and international context, and the characteristics of Cuban society—and the Cuban diaspora—that may shape future developments, and social issues that may arise in a transition. Stay tuned to www.ssrc.org for this and many other developments on our website.